CHRISTMAS WEEK 2 MONDAY MORNING PRAYER

 


SAINT GABRIEL HOURS

Praying with Christ.  Every Day.  Every Where.


 MONDAY MORNING PRAYER

CHRISMAS WEEK II



JANUARY 2

PSALTER WEEK II

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VIRTUAL RESOURCES

FULL ROMAN RITE SERVICES

Three Models (Options) for Praying this Morning

Praying with Christ Every Day, Every Where will be greatly helped by a variety of models and options. 

Becoming skillful in understanding and adapting these models 
for both personal and communal prayer is a major goal of this website. 

The Instruction for the Liturgy of the Hours promotes both recitation in common as well as singing the Hours. 

The first model with its option below emphasizes recitation in common. 
the second model emphasizes the sung nature of the celebration. 
The third model with its easy-to- read monthly booklet is very suitable for personal meditative prayer and study, including marking the text. 

Each of the three Options contains the full official text of Roman Rite for Morning Prayer.  

Links to two websites are embedded here for convenience 
so that one does not have to go to their websites, then locate the desired posting.
 Embedded links do not contain YouTube advertisements.

Each of three Options has a beginning hymn. These are noted below to help you chose among options.  You can begin with one option and its hymn then with a little dexterity switch to another option.

RECITATION IN COMMON MODEL

DIVINE OFFICE.ORG OPTION

Excellent model of small (household size) community reciting the office with sung hymn at the beginning. Experience the Hours as community prayer even when praying alone and as skill building in preparation for praying with others as a small group.  



Invitatory Psalm 95
Hymn: "Jesus, Our Teacher, Loving Lord and Master"
translation Saint Cecilia Abbey of "Doctor Aeternus"
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COMPLETELY SUNG MODEL

SING THE HOURS OPTION

Excellent model of totally sung office mostly by one very talented young person. His father is an excellent translator of Latin Hymns. Although they use some Latin, there is always an English translation. They use simple, mainly Gregorian, chants. 

If you desire to sing along, try chanting only every other verse. 
Listen to the cantor for the remaining verses. 
This corresponds to the ancient practice of alternating between cantor and choir. 

Paul is on vacation.

Above is from week II in Ordinary Time
Latin Hymn: "Splendor Paternae Gloriae,"
English by Robert Bridges (1844-1930),
English Gospel Canticle, English Our Father

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PERSONAL MEDITATION MODEL

WORD ON FIRE OPTION

Bishop Baron's organization recently began producing a monthly booklet that contains Morning, Evening, and Night Prayer for each day. It reads straight through like a book, except for the beginning hymns for each hour which are all in the back of the booklet.  

Below is a close approximation to the hymn they have chosen. Often the video has more or different verses. Sometimes the translation is different. Sometimes the tune. More rarely the choice of hymn has been changed due to the lack of available videos. 

 WORD ON FIRE BOOKLET: JANUARY 2023, pages 41-52

Hymn: Shepherd of Souls

Christ Church Pelham


1,600 views  May 18, 2020


HYMN SELECTED FROM MY PERSONAL FAVORITES

This fourth hymn option reflects the blog author's music collection (first vinyl discs, then cassettes, then CDs) that have been used over the years to support celebration of the Hours.  

Iste Confessor Domini (Confessor Bishop, Hymn)
20K views / 11 years ago


Gregorian Notation and Chant

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THE FOUR WEEK PSALTER 

The Roman Rite Liturgy of the Hours spreads the Book of Psalms over four weeks. See the top of this post for the current Psalter Week. Morning and Evening Prayer each day have two psalms. 

There is an ancient tradition of personal meditation and prayer at the end of each psalm. There are many videos on the internet with psalms sung in a variety of ways, using different languages and translations, and drawing from different musical and spiritual traditions. Some presentations have beautiful slides or videos that can both enhance and interpret the psalm.

 A major goal of this website is greater understanding
 of the Four Week Psalter and its psalms.

VIDEOS FOR THIS HOUR'S PSALMS

The video selections are intended as a stimulus to personal prayer and meditation in the period after the group have recited the psalm in the first option, or the cantor has sung the psalm in the second option, or while a person is looking at the written psalm in the third option above.

PSALM  42

 PSALM 19


Psalm videos were selected to provide as much variety as possible while maintaining substantial ritual consistency by using the same authors or similar musical pieces in the same Hour. Preference was given to videos that covered most of the psalm. No attempt has been made to judge accuracy of translations. Those celebrating have already experienced the official text.        

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THE GOSPEL CANTICLE 

Canticle of Zechariah
Morning and Evening Prayer at Weston Priory
1,375 views Dec 11, 2020 (1998)


Antiphon: 
 Cry out in the stillness of morning. 
 With joy greet the dawn of this new day. 
 Pour out your heart like water. 
 Lift your hands to God in praise.

Lyrics: Canticle of Zachariah

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FOURTH MODEL (OPTION) FOR PRAYING

BECOMING A BLOG AUTHOR OPTION

Using the Word on Fire monthly booklets or any Breviary with authorized texts, one can enhance one's celebration of Morning Prayer with the last four videos chosen by this Blog author without using of either of the first two Virtual Breviary YouTube channels. In other words, this Blog is a Virtual Breviary on its own as long as one has a paper or virtual text.

You, too, can publish your own Virtual Breviary (or at least a Virtual Four Week Psalter) for free by opening a Blogger account, and then embedding your selection of free YouTube videos. Once you embed YouTube videos in your site, they no longer show advertisements. In other words, you can do what this Blog author has been doing for decades through a costly music collection.

Both DivineOffice.org and SingtheHours are lay, grass roots, voluntary initiatives, built upon love of the Hours and many hours of free work, then eventually supported by many viewers, and some donations. 

A major goal of this website is to encourage individuals to create websites
fostering the Hours, especially Virtual Psalters and Virtual Breviaries,
for themselves, friends and communities.

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POST FORMAT AND STYLE NOTE 


This Blog may appear to be complex but is actually very simple.

The only new material consists of two posts per day, one for Morning Prayer and one for Evening Prayer. The new material for each hour consists almost entirely of YouTube videos found above, i.e., two links to Virtual Breviaries, two links to opening hymn videos, two links to psalm videos, and a link to a Gospel Canticle video. Seven substantial virtual resources for celebrating the Hours. This Day. Any Where.

The material in purple is the framework and vision provided by the blog for using these resources.  The material in red is the framework provided by external structures, e.g., the liturgical year, the order of the celebration, websites, hymns, etc. Texts in black regular type are factual information. Texts in italics reflect the blog's framework and vision. 

The material below this Format and Style Note is the Blog's framework and vision for using the resources above this note.  

The first section below consists of Basic Practices using the virtual material provided above for each day.  These practices are both simple stepping-stones to using the virtual resources of this Blog as well as fundamental practices for continued Praying with Christ. Every Day. Every Where. 

The second larger section below on Advanced Practice provides a framework and vision for integrating the Hours into one's life, includes links to many pages which elaborate that framework and provide additional resources.  It is a user-friendly manual readily available all the time however it can be ignored most of the time

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VISION

Praying with Christ. Every Day. Every Where.

Every moment and every event of everyone’s life on earth plants something in our souls. For just as the wind carries thousands of invisible and winged seeds, so the stream of time brings germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest in our hearts and choices

adapted from Thomas Merton, Seeds of Contemplation (1949)

Seeds of Contemplation has been a companion of my spiritual journey since high school. A math teacher in that public school brought it to my attention, initiating a life-long friendship of shared theological interests. 

For more on Seeds of Contemplation,
 click on the following link for my essay

CONTEMPLATION, THE WORK OF GOD AND HUMAN WORK

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WALKING TOGETHER

Historically. Globally. Locally.

The root of Christian life is the place where the love of God is daily intertwined with the love of our neighbor. The knot they tie is where spirituality is situated.

In the area of spirituality it is necessary to drink from our own wells, from our own experience, not only as individuals, but also as members of a people.

Encounter with Christ, life in the Spirit, journey to the Father, such it seems to me are the dimensions of every walking in the Spirit according to the scriptures. 

A rich variety has marked the ways in which throughout history the Christian community has undertaken the following of Jesus; these ways represent experience that we cannot simply leave behind. 

No spirituality can claim to be THE way to be a Christian. It is simply ONE way among others

adapted from Guttirez, We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People

Early in-depth exposure to some of the great spiritualities of Catholicism, i.e., the spirituality of solitude evident in the writings of Merton, Benedictine spirituality at Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota during the Vatican Council, and Jesuit Spirituality during a two- year novitiate have shaped my life. They created a permanent interest in the varieties of spirituality (walking together) evident throughout the history of Catholicism and culminated in a master's degree in spirituality from the University of Notre Dame after my retirement. 

For more on spirituality from a theological and social science perspective, 
click on the following link for my essay

SPIRITUALITY: PERSONAL AND COMMUNAL DIMENSIONS

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PURPOSE OF THIS WEBSITE

Personal and Communal Discernment

  

SYNOD OF THE HEART

The most important synod is the synod of the heart, the ongoing conversations we have with ourselves, with God and with others, about our spiritual journey through life. We raise important questions. We consult both our personal experience and that of others. We have visions and dreams that might give direction to our journey and that of others. We discern where the Spirit of God is leading us both individually and collectively.

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BASIC PRACTICES

Prayer of the Heart

Personal and interpersonal. Thoughts, imagination, emotions, actions. Integrity and wholeness. Grounded in who we are and where we are. Family. Work. Leisure. History. Globally.

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Fifteen Minutes of Prayer Practices

Ignatius cautioned Jesuits against too much time in prayer.  For those who follow the Ignatian ideal of finding God in all things, fifteen minutes a day are sufficient.

Interpersonal communication, our closest relationships average seventeen minutes a day.

We can accomplish major tasks better by using small fifteen- minute sessions rather than allocating the same amount of time into hour long periods.

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Gospel Canticle Practice

Content: Sung Gospel Canticle preceded by praise and thanksgiving, followed by conversion and petitions, concluding with the Lord's Prayer. 

May be done personally or in a group.

May be preceded by a brief Gospel Reading either from the Mass of the Day or from continuous study of the Gospels. 

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Psalm of the Day Practice

Content: One or two psalms, with the official text of the psalm followed by a sung interpretation of the psalm.  

Personal and/or group reflection on the psalm. 

Conclusion: Gospel Canticle and/or Lord's Prayer, either recited or sung.

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Hymn of the Day Practice

Content: One of two hymns.

Personal and/or group reflection on the hymn. 

Conclusion: Either repetition of the hymns or Gospel Canticle and/or Lord's Prayer either recited or sung.

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 Time Study Practice

Content: A prayerful study of how we have using time this day. 

Personal and/or group reflection on experiences that give rise to praise, thanksgiving, conversion and petition.  

Format: An opening hymn or psalm recited or sung and concluding hymn, psalm, Gospel Canticle and/or Lord's Prayer.  Like the Ignatian examination of conscience it may be done early in the day to focus our attention and/or at midday, or end of the day to review our day. 

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. Advanced Practices