EASTER WEEK 3 FRIDAY EVENING PRAYER

 

SAINT GABRIEL HOURS

Praying with Christ.  Every Day.  Every Where.


FRIDAY EVENING PRAYER 

EASTER WEEK III




APRIL 28

PSALTER WEEK III

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VIRTUAL RESOURCES

Virtual resources provide more than the dry bones of the liturgical text. They celebrate the Hours with sounds and images. Most importantly they provide community, both community with those who produced the sounds and images, and community of those who celebrate at various times and places with the same sounds and images.   

The posts for Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer include:

Both a common recitation and a sung virtual resource giving the whole text for the Hour.
Two additional sung alternatives for the beginning Hymn.
Sung alternatives for each of two psalms of each Hour.
Sung versions of both the Gospel Canticle and Lord's Prayer

Breviaries which provide the liturgical texts for the Hours usually contain multiple ribbons that are necessary to switch between sections of the breviary. Word on Fire provides a monthly booklet containing the texts for Morning and Evening Prayer. It reads straight through just like a book, except for the Hymns which are in the back of the book. Four hymn choices for each post mean that one never has to flip to the back of their booklet. 

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FULL ROMAN RITE SERVICES

Three Models (Options) for Evening Prayer (Vespers):

Praying with Christ Every Day, Every Where will be greatly helped by a variety of models each illustrated by a concrete option. 

Becoming skillful at 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 below with its option emphasizes recitation in common. 
The second model below with its option emphasizes the sung nature of the celebration. 
The third model below with its easy-to- read monthly booklet is very suitable for personal meditative prayer and study, including marking the text. Don't throw the booklets away!

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

Each of the three Options has a beginning hymn. These are noted below as an aid to choosing among options.  With a little practice, one can begin with one option and its hymn, then 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.  


Hymn: "Angel of the Agony "
by Briege O'Hare and Marie Cox
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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. If English is preferred, either pause the Latin after a verse to pray the English or mute the Latin and pray the English. When using virtual resources, there are always alternatives!


 Hymn: "At the Lamb's High Feast We Sing."
English Gospel Canticle & Lord's Prayer
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PERSONAL MEDITATION MODEL

WORD ON FIRE OPTION

Bishop Baron's Word on Fire organization produces 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 which does not have a ribbon! 

Below is a close approximation to the hymn they have chosen. Often the video has more or different verses. Sometimes the translation and or the tune will be different.  Unfortunately, sometimes the choice of hymn has to be changed due to the lack of available videos. 

 WORD ON FIRE BOOKLET: APRIL 2023, pages 597-604

Sing With All the Saints in Glory (Lyric Video)

ILP music


35,455 views / Mar 29, 2021


HYMN SELECTED FROM MY PERSONAL FAVORITES

This fourth hymn option is strongly influenced by this blog author's musical interests and collection (first vinyl discs, then cassettes, then CDs). Essentially the author has been using a musical collection for decades to do what anyone can do with YouTube videos. Anyone also can start a blog like this to record for themselves and others their musical choices.   

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


Gregorian Notation and Chant

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THE FOUR WEEK PSALTER 

Since Vatican II, the Roman Rite Liturgy of the Hours has spread the Book of Psalms over four weeks. The older practice of praying the psalms in order has been abandoned in favor of psalms specifically selected for Morning and Evening Prayer. 

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

As noted in the General Instruction, there is an ancient tradition of personal meditation and prayer at the end of each psalm. The English Breviary composed psalm-prayers to try to recover this practice. 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.

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.

PSALM 135



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 





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THE LORD'S PRAYER




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DIVINE OFFICE / LITURGY OF THE HOURS

is the Prayer of Christ and the Church

"Christ Jesus, high priest of the new and eternal covenant, taking human nature, introduced into this earthly exile that hymn which is sung throughout all ages in the halls of heaven. He joins the entire community of mankind to Himself, associating it with His own singing of this canticle of divine praise."  (Vatican II Constitution on Sacred Liturgy, #86)

"For he continues His priestly work through the agency of His Church, which is ceaselessly engaged in praising the Lord and interceding for the salvation of the whole world. She does this, not only by celebrating the Eucharist, but also in other ways, especially by praying the Divine Office.  (Vatican II Constitution on Sacred Liturgy, #86)

"Lauds as Morning Prayer and Vespers as Evening Prayer are the two hinges on which the daily office turns; hence they are to be considered as the chief hours and are to be celebrated as such." (Vatican II Constitution on Sacred Liturgy, #89)

"The Divine Office, because it is the public prayer of the Church, is a source of piety, and nourishment for personal prayer. And therefore, priests and all others who take part in the     Divine Office are earnestly exhorted in the Lord to attune their minds to their voices when praying it. The better to achieve this, let them take steps to improve their understanding of the liturgy and of the bible, especially of the psalms." (Vatican II Constitution on Sacred Liturgy, #90)

"It is, moreover, fitting that the office, both in choir and in common, be sung when possible." (Vatican II Constitution on Sacred Liturgy, #99)
 
"... the laity, too, are encouraged to recite the Divine Office, either with the priests, or among themselves, or even individually." (Vatican II Constitution on Sacred Liturgy, #100)

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FUNDAMENTAL DISCERNMENT QUESTION

How can we, as individuals and groups,
 use virtual resources such as those above, 
to celebrate the Hours, the Prayer of Christ, 
Every Day, Every Where?

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GUIDE TO PAGES ON THIS SITE

In addition to time and date stamped posts, such as one for Morning Prayer and one for Evening Prayer for each day, Blogs allow uses to create pages to provide a framework for understanding and using the posts.  The list of these pages for this blog is in the Navigation on the upper left.  

However, in order to understand the relationship of these pages to each other and the Fundamental Discernment Question, the author has created this more extensive guide to the pages at the bottom of each post. It will also be used to label NEW and REVISED pages for the convenience of the reader.

Blogs also have the ability to add user comments to each post; this has not been enabled for this blog. The author is a social scientist who is very interested in collecting qualitative data about the experiences of users. Qualitative data, opened ended questions and comments, can actually be both more reliable and valid that quantitative data, but it does have to be collected systematically. If you are interested in becoming a member of a user group of this blog focused on the Fundamental Discernment Question, please contact the author at jarakosky@gmail.com.