← The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
Day 161: The Liturgy of the Hours (2026)
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The Liturgy of the Hours is known as the “public prayer of the Church.” Fr. Mike explains how praying the Liturgy of the Hours sanctifies time and gives God the opportunity to speak to us throughout our day. Fr. Mike encourages us to see the Liturgy of the Hours as a great gift from the Church that can powerfully transform our prayer lives when it takes root in our hearts. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1174-1178.
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Foreign. Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in Scripture and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a Year is brought to you by ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity in God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home through this is day 161. We are reading paragraphs 1174 to 1178. As always, I'm sure you know this. I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the Foundations of Faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own Catechism and year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com ciy and you can click Follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. That way it comes right to your I was gonna say to your inbox. I don't think it goes to your inbox. I think it just goes pops up and says, hey, listen to me today. And here we are listening today, day 161. We're reading paragraphs 1174 to 1178. This is on the Liturgy of the Hours. Now, obviously we're deep into the idea of the liturgy. Yesterday we talked about the liturgical year. We talked about that strange word the sanctoral, which is ultimately not strange. It just indicates the feast days of Our lady or of other saints. But today we're talking about the Liturgy of the Hours, also known as the Divine. You might have seen, like, you know, the priest walking around with this book that's not exactly a Bible, has the Word of God in it, but it's not a Bible. You might call it the Breviary or Breviary B R E V I A R Y Breviary. Your deacon might pray the Breviary. You might have a friend, maybe even you pray the Breviary. That's the Liturgy of the Hours. Now we're going to talk about, like, the importance of the Liturgy of the Hours of the Divine Office. But I just want to give some context. So the Liturgy of the Hours is prayed roughly five times a day, or maybe exactly five times a day. Priests, deacons, bishops, a lot of religious sisters and brothers. There might even be some lay people who make a commitment. In fact, when I was ordained a deacon, I made a promise to pray all five hours a day. We call them hours, but they're moments, really. And these five hours of the day are the office of readings. So that's extended praying the psalms and extended reading from Scripture, as well as a reflection by the church or by someone who's notable. That's called the office of readings. Then you have morning prayer, daytime prayer, evening prayer, and night prayer. So that adds up to five different times a day where we stop and we have to pray. Not have to. Well, yes, have to. And get to. We're obligated to. And we get to, in fact. Okay, so that's nuts and bolts. That's what it is. Those five hours of the day. The importance of this, and I'm going to highlight this before we read this reading because it's very important. The importance of this is this is actually technically known as the prayer of the church. In paragraph 1175, it says that the Liturgy of the hours is intended to become the prayer of the whole people of God. And so you might think, wait, wait, wait, wait. I've never even heard of this. Or maybe I've never even been encouraged by my priest, by my parish, by any teachers to pray the Liturgy of the hours. And yet this prayer is meant to be the prayer of the whole people of God. It is the prayer of the church. And so as we launch into these five paragraphs today, we know what they are. They're at the office of readings, morning prayer, daytime prayer, evening prayer, and night prayer. They're meant to sanctify the entire day. And they're God's gift through the church to you. They're God's gift through the church to me. And so to be able to recognize this is not an extra obligation placed on anybody, but the church here is highlighting their importance. So I just hope that that's really clear both what it is, how important it is, as well as the fact that we're all just. All of us are merely invited into participating in them. Right? We're invited. We're not. No extra guilt laid on your shoulders, because here is an invitation to join in the prayer of the church. So as we hear about this, let's actually lift up our voices in prayer as we pray. Father in heaven, we give you thanks and praise. We ask you to please send your Holy Spirit to be with us now. Send your Holy Spirit to fill our minds and our hearts. Lord, especially in Jesus name, I ask you to cast out any spirit of false guilt that anyone who's joining us today might be experiencing that false guilt where I feel like I'm doing something wrong. I'm not doing anything wrong. I feel like I'm not doing enough when no, I'm doing exactly what you're asking me to do. Lord God, in the name of Jesus, your Son, cast out that spirit of false guilt. Give us a true sense of guilt. Give us a true awareness of where it is you're calling us to act, where you're calling us to speak, where you're calling us to refrain from acting or speaking. But Lord, help us in our weakness, help us in our ignorance, help us in our blindness and our deafness to be able to silence that voice of false guilt and to be attentive to the Holy Spirit who convicts us and leads us into all truth. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is day 161. We are reading paragraphs 1174 to 1178. The liturgy of the Hours the mystery of Christ, His Incarnation and Passover, which we celebrate in the Eucharist, especially at the Sunday assembly, permeates and transfigures the time of each day through the celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours, the Divine Office. 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 laypeople exercise the royal priesthood of the baptized, celebrated in the form approved by the Church. The Liturgy of the Hours is truly the voice of the bride herself addressed to her bridegroom. It is the very prayer which Christ Himself, together with His Body, addresses to the Father. The Liturgy of the Hours is intended to become the prayer of the whole people of God. In it, Christ Himself continues his priestly work through His Church. His members participate according to their own place in the church and the circumstances of their lives. Priests devoted to the pastoral ministry, because they are called to remain diligent in prayer and the service of the word religious by the charism of their consecrated lives. All the faithful, as much as possible pastors of souls, should see to it that the principal hours, especially Vespers, are celebrated in common in church. On Sundays and on the more solemn feasts, the laity too are encouraged to recite the Divine Office either with the priests or among themselves, or even individually. The celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours demands not only harmonizing the voice with the praying heart, but also a deeper understanding of the liturgy and of The Bible, especially of the Psalms. The hymns and litanies of the Liturgy of the Hours integrate the prayer of the Psalms into the age of the Church, expressing the symbolism of the time of day, the liturgical season, or the feast being celebrated. Moreover, the reading from the Word of God at each hour, with the subsequent responses or troparia and readings from the fathers and spiritual masters at certain hours, reveal more deeply the meaning of the mystery being celebrated, assist in understanding the Psalms, and prepare for silent prayer. The Lectio divina, where the Word of God is so read and meditated that it becomes prayer, is thus rooted in the liturgical celebration. The Liturgy of the Hours, which is like an extension of the Eucharistic celebration, does not exclude, but rather in a complementary way, calls forth the various devotions of the people of God, especially in adoration and worship of the Blessed Sacrament. Okay, there we are, paragraphs 1174 to 1178. The liturgy of the Hours. Where do I even begin? Well, let's highlight this. Let's highlight the fact that the Liturgy of the Hours exists to assist the people of God, us, all of us, to do exactly what the Scriptures have commanded us, right? Scripture has told us to pray constantly, to pray always. And so here are priests, deacons, religious, here's lay people who are responding to that, you know, scriptural injunction, that command, by saying, okay, I'm going to set aside some time at various times each day, and I'm just going to let the Lord speak to me. I'm going to encounter God's Word. This is vital for every single one of us to do this. And the Church has basically given us a structure where we read God's Word. So we let God speak to us, and then we speak back to Him. And this is the flow of the office of readings, of morning prayer, of daytime prayer, of evening prayer, and of night prayer. We recognize there are sacred places, places. There are locations that are holy, right? You can go to the Holy Land, and you can actually go into that space where the tomb was. You can go climb up Golgotha, where Jesus Christ our Lord was crucified. There are these places that are consecrated in some way right there, holy. But God did not just make space. He also made time. And so because of that, time can be holy, right? Time can be sanctified, time can be consecrated. And so that's one of the things we are called to do as Christians. Christians is we're called to consecrate time. You know, I don't know if you have enough room in your house. That there's, like, dedicated places or dedicated spaces. I don't have a ton of them. We have a little garage that's our daily Mass chapel. So I guess that is definitely our consecrated place. But in the little apartment that I live in, there's not a lot of room for any dedicated space. So you might not have that in your home, but you can have dedicated time. No matter who we are, no matter how big or how small our apartment or house is, we can all have this time that we say, okay, this time is set aside. This time is holy to the Lord. And so that's what the Liturgy of the Hours is for. It's to help us set aside that time, especially when we're so busy, especially when there's so many other things that are competing for our time, competing for our attention. The Liturgy of the Hours is so devised. It says in 1174 that the whole course of the day and night is made holy by the praise of God. Now, as I said before at the very beginning in the intro, I said, that's not only the nuts and bolts of those five hours, right? The office of readings, morning prayer, daytime prayer, evening prayer, night prayer. But it's also so important. This is the public prayer of the church. And the church says, okay, you can do this. Why? Because it's meant to be an exercise of the royal priesthood of the baptized. So as it says later on, it says it's like an extension of the Eucharistic celebration, that what's at the heart of the Eucharistic celebration is the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist being offered up to the Father. This is the action of sacrifice. So it's the action of worship is you have the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus offered to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, when you pray the Office of Readings, when you pray morning prayer, daytime prayer, evening prayer, night prayer, you're extending that Eucharistic celebration. And it's a way of participating in it. Especially, you know, if you're unable to get to Mass on any given day. I mean, during the week, right. We're obligated to have their Sunday Mass. If you're unable to get to Mass during the week, to at least pray morning prayer, it's an extension of the Eucharistic celebration. Right? And any of the hours would be. But, you know, a lot of times in most parishes, they have a morning Mass. I can't make it to the morning Mass. Well, maybe I can pray morning prayer. And that can be One of the ways that I participate in the Eucharistic celebration, it's one of the ways that I exercise the priesthood of the baptized. Remember, we talked about this many times, the kingdom priesthood, when you and I pray the Liturgy of the Hours, it is the prayer of the whole church. And it is what it says in paragraph 1174. It is truly the voice of the bride herself addressed to her bridegroom. It is the very prayer which Christ himself together with his body, addresses to the Father. This is. It's so important. Now, keep this in mind. It also can be really boring. In fact, I. Gosh. Okay, here we go. A little confession time. When I was in seminary, leading up to my deaconate ordination, right, we understand this. We'll talk about it later on as we move through the sacraments. But a guy is first ordained a deacon, then a priest, and then ultimately a bishop, if that's, you know, fullness of orders. So when I was ordained a deacon, that's when you make two promises, at least. And those two. Well, a couple promises. One promise is celibacy, of course. The other promise is to pray the Liturgy of the Hours every single day, all five hours until I'm dead, basically. And I have to tell you, I was more concerned about this promise to pray the Liturgy of the Hours every single day than I was about celibacy. Because I was like, man, in. In the seminary. I mean, I got most of the hours. I mean, I got a few of the hours. I don't know how many times. I got all five every single day. It was few and far between. And here I am the night before getting ordained and making that promise, oh, wow, I'm going to pray. And because, let's be honest, sometimes showing up for prayer is a burden. I mean, sometimes it's like, no, here's my one time a day I'm going to prayer. I'm going to set this time aside. Here's 20 minutes. Here's 30 minutes. Here's 60 minutes. That's great. But, man, wow. I prayed this morning. Got to pray again. You know, I'm exaggerating a little bit to make the case, but, you know, sometimes it's hard to make time. It's hard to make more than one time. It's hard to make five times a day, say, we're going to set this, whatever I'm doing down and pray. It's even harder when you don't get anything out of it. That was my experience with praying the Liturgy of the Hours, praying the divine office. I was like, man, okay, I'm praying these Psalms. I'm praying these canticles. I am, yep, just saying these words, and it felt very hollow, and it felt like I was getting nothing out of it. And yet here I am the night before getting ordained, about to make a promise to pray this every single day. I was like, okay, Lord, here we go. I have to tell you, I'm so grateful. I am so grateful that the Lord called me to make that promise. Because in the months, years now, decades since I made that promise, the Lord has transformed the Liturgy of the Hours for me. I have a good friend. He's a father and a husband. He calls the Liturgy of the Hours his bread and butter. It's one of those things. Like. It's just like. It is the most stable staple of his diet. And I'm just. Yeah, that's really what it's become. It has become a great gift. In fact, I remember very distinctly one moment. I think I might have been ordained for two or three years or something like this. And I was on retreat. It was the one retreat a year. You know, priests are obliged to go on retreat at least once a year. And it was middle of January in northern Minnesota, and I was in this, like, little hermitage, right? So it was this one room, had some gas, heat and gas light. There was no running water, no electricity. It was out there in the. In the middle of the woods, and it was cold. And I went for a walk one one day, and it was just, like, bitterly cold, but I just wanted to get outside. I remember as I was walking these trails in these woods, and I just. I was like, God, I just want to talk to you. I want to say. But I don't have. I don't want my own words. My words seem not big enough to capture what's inside, to express. And all of a sudden, I started praying these words. And I realized as I was praying that I was praying the Psalms, like the Psalms I had returned to again and again so many times that they had kind of taken root in my heart, into my mind. I'm like. I didn't realize that I had memorized these things, and they had been interiorized in such a way that what started out as kind of mechanical prayer, here I am just praying the Psalms because that's what you do, praying these canticles from other books of Scripture, because that's what you do. They had taken root in my heart and really transformed the way I could approach the Lord. And this is, I think, what the church is saying here in These paragraphs, everyone is called to do this. It goes on to say all the faithful as much as possible. Here's this quote from 1175. Pastors of souls should see to it that the principal hours, especially vespers, are celebrated in common in church. On Sundays and on the more solemn feasts, the laity too are encouraged to recite the Divine office, either with the priests or among themselves, or even individually. Now, this isn't meant to exclude other devotions. The other devotions are great. The Rosary is incredible, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, wonderful. Stations of the Cross, whatever other devotion there is for the people of God, for us, those are all great. This is not meant to exclude them, but to be complementary to all those other devotions. So here's the big invitation. The big invitation is to receive the challenge that I received, which is to sanctify time, right? To sanctify the different hours of the day. My invitation would be something along the lines of to track down. For you to do this, be able to track down even morning prayer or daytime prayer, evening prayer or night prayer. My favorite is the office of readings, because there's more to read, there's more scripture in there. It's deeper in just my experience. But to do morning prayer, daytime prayer, evening prayer or night prayer, and just choose one of them and just begin by saying, okay, this week I'm going to pray morning prayer, or this week even night prayer. Night prayer is a great thing to pray as a family because it's the shortest one. That's one thing. And also because at the end of the day it can be just one of those. Here's how we pray night prayer. And it's always the same. Monday night is always the same. Tuesday night's always the same versus the other days. Are they kind of on a four week schedule? But here's something you can do to make it easy. When I first started doing this, this is the last thing I promise. When I first started doing this, I had the book called the Breviary, right? And there's a lot of ribbons, there's a lot of flipping of pages back and forth. And the thing that kept me from doing it originally wasn't just boredom. It wasn't just kind of like emptiness or hollowness. What kept me from doing it was like, I don't know what page I'm supposed to be on. I don't know which. What is the prayer for today? Well, praise to God. We have this thing called technology where there are apps that are literally, here's the Liturgy of the Hours. This is a Liturgy of the Hour app. Not only do you have it where you can just download the app and you can just pray along whatever it is on today, you hit morning prayer, bam, there you are. Just follow along. There are also some podcasts out there that have recorded people praying the Liturgy of the Hours and you just have to press play and pray along. That can be super helpful. So my invitation, this is the prayer of the church. This is the prayer of the whole people of God where you get to exercise the priesthood and that the Lord God has shared with you. So invitation, take a look. Either download one of those apps where you can pray Liturgy of the Hours or even just find one of those podcasts where you can pray the Liturgy of the Hours and just test it out and see what it feels like to sanctify each hour of the day. Because remember, each hour of the day, you are a kingdom priest. Each hour of the day, you get to exercise your priesthood. Anyways, that's what I got. Oh, man, what a great day, you guys. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.