"Just Google it!"
This seems to be my life motto. Frankly, I'm going to avoid all of the "information-overload" reasons of why this is an unnecessary and possibly damaging habit and skip to what I really want to talk about:
Liturgy of the Hours
I recently met with a priest friend of mine who was home for a visit and one of his parting remarks was, "Well, maybe this summer you can get back into the habit of praying [Morning Prayer for Liturgy of the Hours]. It's that and the Rosary. If you pray, all things will fall into place."
I've always failed at praying the Rosary every day, and one day I decided that I didn't really need to pray Morning Prayer every day either. I didn't have the heart to tell him these disappointing truths so that's probably why the Holy Spirit took over.
...Since I had a 15-minute drive home to think about the conversation, I wondered "Why should I pray Morning Prayer?" I could understand why I should pray the Rosary every day...I mean, I love Our Lady! I can definitely make an effort to ask for her help on a daily basis.
But, Morning Prayer? My friends and I have been praying Night Prayer almost every night. Why wouldn't that be enough? The Divine Office* is a crucial part of the Priesthood and Religious Life, but is it necessary for the Laity which I am proudly a member of? I pondered and pondered this question until I decided to do some digging and find out the answer. I'm too embarrassed to ask Father what seems like an ignorant question: "Why should I pray Morning Prayer?" because I should know this answer. So I went to the "next best source," where I can find out answers by keeping my anonymity. I asked Google because I only needed a good reason to pray the Office.
Sometimes, it is important for us to know the reasons behind the practices of our Faith. I had made the Office a part of my morning routine for a long time (not only in the convent, but also once I got to college). Routine comes easy for me and maybe for most of us: Wake up, pray, brush teeth, shower, etc. But when you do something out of habit without knowing why, all it takes is one little fall and we start to think twice. So here's a thank you to some Catholic Dad out there, because:
A Catholic Dad's blog has a short and sweet explanation of why we should pray at all, and why we should pray the Liturgy of the Hours:
The Divine Office allows for us as Catholics to set special times of the day aside to connect with our faith and our relationship to Christ. “This celebration, faithful to the apostolic exhortations to ‘pray constantly,’ is ‘so devised that the whole course of the day and night is made holy by the praise of God.’ In this ‘public prayer of the church, the faithful (clergy, religious, and lay people) exercise the royal priesthood of the baptized.’”[5] The Liturgy of the Hours is “like an extension of the Eucharistic celebration.”[6]
As Catholics we are all called to be priests, prophets and kings through the liturgy or “public work” of Christ.[11] When we make prayer an important part of our day, whether it be in the form of “Reading Sacred Scripture, praying the Liturgy of the Hours and the Our Father – every sincere act of worship or devotion revives the spirit of conversion and repentance within us and contributes to the forgiveness of our sins.”[12]
He found his sources from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. What a genius to look there! :)
