![]() ![]() ![]() Over the course of the past 25 years (and after having learned Latin), I have come to know firsthand the essential structure that the Divine Office provides to time and the spiritual life, particularly for a layman.Įach day is new each day requires that its time be sanctified. “He riffed on the beauty of weaving the Psalms into the fabric of his day, during the breaking of the morning sun and the night darkness enveloping the countryside, and prayer in general.”Īs a result of this java-fueled “Merton moment,” as I call it, I tracked down a copy of the Divine Office so that I could punctuate my own days with it. “His description of praying the Psalms of the Divine Office while gazing out the window on a train to and from retreats at the monastery intrigued me,” writes Anthony Alt. Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain speaks in a particular section about how he began the practice of praying the Divine Office. The copious amounts of caffeine I consumed that day in the coffee shop (I indeed had mo’ and mo’ java!) had conspired with grace and Merton’s words to bring about a singular change in me. He riffed on the beauty of weaving the Psalms into the fabric of his day, during the breaking of the morning sun and the night darkness enveloping the countryside, and prayer in general. His description of praying the Psalms of the Divine Office while gazing out the window on a train to and from retreats at the monastery intrigued me. ![]() Merton spoke in a particular section about how he began the practice of praying the Divine Office (and much to my consternation at the time, frequently quoted Latin phrases from the Psalms, before I had learned Latin). With my father’s comment still fresh in my mind, I purchased it and proceeded to my favorite coffee shop (Mo Java) where I devoured Merton’s autobiography. ![]() While walking through an aisle, my eye happened upon a book with an arresting picture of a mountain on the cover: The Seven Storey Mountain. But the next day, I was in Barnes & Noble (before bookstores became mostly extinct) searching for a book on photography. One evening while my father and I drove around taking landscape photographs, he asked whether I had ever read Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain. It took until my junior year in high school before I had heard of the Divine Office. Forced changes to our daily lives can be tremendous opportunities for growth, and so we should take the words of Winston Churchill to heart: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” I wish to pick up the conceptual thread of Abbot Murphy’s insightful piece by focusing on the importance of one liturgical practice for purposes of sanctifying time: the Divine Office. COVID-19 has affected daily habits and routines, and we should indeed reflect upon the structures we have implemented or failed to implement for use of our time, and particularly for those of us who are among the laity. Murphy admirably underscores the importance of using free time well for one’s spiritual growth, and how it requires implementing structures in the form of beneficial liturgical and devotional practices. In his recent article, “‘Idle’ Worship: Religious Structures and the Redemption of Time during Pandemic” (May 2021 Adoremus Bulletin), Benedictine Abbot Austin G. ![]()
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