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Welcome
Enjoy... But remember
"Don't give in to winning the argument
and losing one of your eternal crowns..."
God bless you...
Enjoy... But remember
"Don't give in to winning the argument
and losing one of your eternal crowns..."
God bless you...
Divine Office
Greeks and Orthodox Church Desire Unity With Catholic Church (Matthew Tan Yew Hock)
Some Pour Cold Water On Jesus' Prayer (John 17:21,23), Others Pray and Move With Him !!! (Matthew Tan Yew Hock)
The Rosary (Jason S)
Rosay: Prayer and Meditations on Christ (Matthew Tan Yew Hock)
Gregorian Chants and Vespers (Jason S)
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Much following after it's Jewish roots, the Christian Church has followed the practice of saying set prayers at different points of the day. The significant daily moments were during sunrise and during sunset and the practice began at Cathedral Church to commemorate the rising Christ with the rising sun and then the celebrate the light of Christ by having a
service that surrounds the lighting of the lamps. This evening prayer is known as vespers and the rite of lighting lamps lucernarium, and is both the morning and evening rounds are done in both the Eastern and Western churches.
Then as monasticism becomes widespread there was a need to have more prayers throughout the day to consecrate the hours. In the western Church, one monastic reformer by the name of Benedict (of Nursia) compiled a rule book for the formation of monastic communities that avoided the excesses of acsetisicm while maintaining a standard of discipline. Communities inspired by his rules are known as Benedictine monasteries and there are Roman Catholic, Old Catholic and Anglican Benedictine Monasteries throughout the world. Benedict stipulated that there will be seven rounds of prayers throughout the day: Lauds at sunrise (named after the Laudate Psalms -Psalms 145-150) which are always sung during this service, Prime when the sun is risen, Terce at mid morning, sext at noon, none in the mid-afternoon, vespers at sunset, and then compline before sleeping. Then at night, there is a service of Matins, where the monks would wake up in the middle of the night to sing more psalms and read from the Church fathers/mothers. Central to each office is the recitation of the Psalms and the Psalter is spread in such a way that all the Psalms are read through during the week. The traditional music for these service are known as Plainsong, and commonly called Gregorian Chant because Saint Gregory the Great was chiefly involved in the reformation of Church Music. The daily round of services is collectively known as the Divine Office. In a way the Rosary is a development of the Divine Office because during the middle ages it was rather difficult for the laity to have access to this round of prayers. So to enable them to join and add their voices to the monastic prayers, simplified acts of prayers are encouraged among the laily and the Rosary is one of them. The Anglican Church, in simplifying the discipline of the Divine Office to make it more acccessible to the people eliminated most of the prayers, combined matins and lauds into morning prayer and then vespers and compline into evening prayers. Vespers is also commonly sung in Lutheran Churches. The Roman Catholics have also revised the Divine Office, removed prime, having a mid-day prayer to replace the three fold prayer of terce, sext and none, and allowing mattins to be said at any time of the day. Hope this information helps.
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