30 Days of Prayer Challenge

I absolutely adore a routine. 

            When I say routine, I don’t mean doing the same thing every day for the next forty years…

            More like small pockets of routine sprinkled throughout my days. Little things that I do that help me anchor and ground myself. It brings me comfort to have that little bit of familiarity I can count on. 

            And my favorite thing about these miniature routines is that they’re a fantastic place to incorporate spiritual practices into my days. 

            Because I can be really great at sporadically keeping up with spiritual practices, especially prayer. 

            You know the whole “Hey God it’s me just checking in and I know it’s been a while” kind of prayers? Yeah, those are what I’m trying to break away from. 

            So I decided to challenge myself to pray the hours of the day for the next month to see what happens. 

            At this point, you might be asking, “What do you mean by praying the hours of the day? Isn’t that a bit intense for someone just trying to set up a regular prayer routine?” 

            To which I say, fair questions. So let’s dive into what exactly I mean when I refer to praying the hours of the day. 

            First things first, it doesn’t mean you set an alarm on your phone and pray every single hour of the day. Although you could, and that would be super cool, and I applaud you if that’s you. 

            What I’m talking about is part of the monastic tradition and the way prayer is approached in Benedictine communities in particular. It’s often referred to as the Divine Office or the Liturgy of the Hours.

            Like other Christian spiritual practices, it has its roots in the early church. For many, praying the hours of the day meant setting aside time at the third, sixth, and ninth hours (9 AM, noon, and 3 PM). 

            During the time of the founding of the Benedictine movement, the liturgical hours once again underwent change. The practice explained by St. Benedict in his Rule became the model that many in the church would and continue to follow. 

            According to the Rule of St. Benedict, those striving to keep the liturgical hours should have seven set times throughout the day to pray, read scripture, sing hymns and partake in other forms of worship. 

            Those times are known by their Latin names: Matins (nighttime), Lauds (early morning), Terce (third hour), Sext (noon), Nones (ninth hour), Vespers (sunset evening), and Compline (end of the day). 

            Each set prayer time is accompanied by a scripture reading. The Rule of St. Benedict is designed in such a way that those keeping the liturgical hours would read through all 150 Psalms each week (sometimes adjusted to all 150 in a month). Other short portions of scripture can be read alongside of the Psalms. 

            So will I be setting an alarm on my phone to wake up at 6 AM so I can follow this exactly? No. No I will not. Because when it comes to a spiritual practice routine, I care more about creating something sustainable than something that strictly adheres to rules. 

            I find inspiration from the spiritual practice explained in the Rule of St. Benedict, but I also know myself. As aspirational as it is to keep the exact hours with all that it entails, I know it is not sustainable for me for a month. 

            So, I’m choosing to keep five hours in my day that work well with my schedule: 9 AM, Noon, 3 PM, 6 PM, and 9PM. Each time the alarm goes off on my phone, I am going to open with the doxology:

Glory to the Father, 

And to the Son, 

And to the Holy Spirit, 

As it was in the beginning, 

Is now, 

And ever shall be, 

World without end. 

Amen.

            I am then going to read aloud one of the Psalms, starting with Psalm 1 and going from there, one at a time at each of the hours of the day I’ve chosen to keep. This way, I am slowly making my way through the book of Psalms during the month of November. 

            After reading aloud from scripture, I will spend a few minutes in silence. Then I will move into personal prayer time. Finally, I will close out each prayer time by reciting the Peace Prayer of St. Francis, a personal favorite. 

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy. 

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek 

To be consoled as to console, 

To be understood as to understand, 

To be loved as to love. 

For it is in giving that we receive, 

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, 

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. 

Amen. 

            You may choose to go a different path in your journey of praying the hours, and that’s fantastic. If you want to follow the exact method utilized in Benedictine monasteries, then go for it. 

            That said you might find this excessive, or too lengthy to put into your schedule. That’s completely fine. You may decide you only want to do this when you first wake up in the morning, at noon, and before you go to sleep at night. You may choose to only do one reading from the Psalms each day. You could choose different prayers to open and close your time. 

            The point of this entire exercise is to learn to set aside time in your day to spend in prayer. It’s a small routine to help you anchor yourself and find pockets of rest in God. 

            If at any point your practice becomes a cause of stress or more about a thing you need to check off your list, it’s time to take a step back and reevaluate what’s going on. Do you need to adjust the numbers of time you keep the hours? Do you need to schedule different times that work better with the flow of your day? 

            Be willing to be flexible with it. Spiritual practices should be restorative and life giving, not a dreaded part of the day. 

            Come up with a prayer routine that will work for you and your schedule:

1. Pick out the sections of scripture you want to read through each day or week

2. Choose any additional prayers you would like to pray to open and close each of your hours (optional)

3. Decide on the hours of the day you want to spend a portion of in prayer

4. Set reminders on your phone and in your schedule for those hours

            Lastly and most importantly, stick with your schedule. Life happens, and things can get busy and come up all of a sudden. That’s okay. Maybe that means on that day when the alarm goes off on your phone, all you have time for is a quick recitation of St. Francis’ prayer. It’s still drawing your attention back to God, if only for those two minutes. 

            Sometimes, that’s all we need in order to be sustained for the rest of our day.  

            Over time, you may want to change up how you keep the hours. You may decide to add more or take away things. But you have built a solid foundation and made it a part of your daily life. 

            And that small shift can radically change things. How you interact with God. How you interact with others. How you think about yourself and the world during the day. 

            So give it a go, and let me know how praying the hours impacts your life. I can’t wait to hear about how this spiritual practice shakes things up for you. 

            Also if you haven’t checked out the Bible study guide I created based around the Lectio Divina, you can read all about it here. 

            If you’re looking for other approaches to prayer, you can read about how I pray and journal through the book of Psalms in this post.