# Bishop Barron – Why Every Catholic Should Pray the Liturgy of the Hours

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 13 Sep 2026, 35 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/74918831/why_all_catholics_should_pray_the_liturgy_of_the_hours.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Word on Fire show. I'm Matthew Petrusik,
[0:02] Speaker 1: Senior Director of the Word on Fire Institute and the
[0:03] Speaker 1: host of the Word on Fire show. Thank you for
[0:05] Speaker 1: joining us. The Liturgy of the Hours or the Divine
[0:08] Speaker 1: Office is often associated exclusively with the spiritual practices of priests, monks,
[0:13] Speaker 1: and nuns. To be sure, praying the hours is an
[0:15] Speaker 1: essential part of the lives of those who have formerly
[0:18] Speaker 1: taken religious vows. However, the prayer of the church, as
[0:21] Speaker 1: the Liturgy of the Hours is also called, is precisely that,
[0:25] Speaker 1: a way of sanctifying the day for the whole church,
[0:28] Speaker 1: both laity and clergy alike. With so many forms of
[0:31] Speaker 1: prayer already available, however, why should lay Catholics also consider
[0:35] Speaker 1: praying the hours? What substantively is distinctive about it? What
[0:39] Speaker 1: are its origins? Moreover, given the size and complexity of
[0:42] Speaker 1: the hours, the full liturgy occupies four thick volumes of
[0:46] Speaker 1: text with multiple ribbons to mark different sections, how practically
[0:50] Speaker 1: can we get started? Here to explain the enduring theological
[0:53] Speaker 1: and spiritual richness of the liturgy of the hours and
[0:56] Speaker 1: how it deepens and enriches all Catholics' lives is Bishop
[0:59] Speaker 1: Robert Barron. Bishop, welcome back to the studio.
[1:12] Speaker 2: Hey, Matt. Good to be with you.
[1:13] Speaker 1: So today we're looking at the liturgy of the hours
[1:17] Speaker 1: and why praying the liturgy is a beneficial spiritual practice
[1:20] Speaker 1: for all Catholics, not just those who have taken religious vows.
[1:24] Speaker 1: But before we get into all that, what have you
[1:26] Speaker 1: been up to recently?
[1:27] Speaker 2: Just recently, I was way out in the western part
[1:30] Speaker 2: of my diocese. I go from Wisconsin to South Dakota,
[1:33] Speaker 2: all across the southern part of Minnesota. And so I
[1:36] Speaker 2: went to four parishes way out west in my diocese.
[1:38] Speaker 2: I always like going out there. And we had different liturgy.
[1:42] Speaker 2: One was a parish anniversary liturgy, but another one was
[1:45] Speaker 2: the candidacy liturgy. So five of our young guys declaring candidacy,
[1:50] Speaker 2: meaning the formal public declaration that they're candidates for the priesthood.
[1:55] Speaker 2: And just it was a great, joyful celebration. The people
[1:58] Speaker 2: find that very moving and uplifting. So that was a
[2:01] Speaker 2: fun little weekend jaunt. I covered a lot of miles.
[2:05] Speaker 2: My diocese is about four hours end to end. So
[2:08] Speaker 2: I drove about. three hours out there, you know, and
[2:11] Speaker 2: then stayed overnight and then worked my way back.
[2:14] Speaker 1: Better to drive in the summer than in the winter.
[2:16] Speaker 2: No, that's what I do is I go out west
[2:18] Speaker 2: a lot during the good months because in the winter
[2:20] Speaker 2: you really can't because even if it's not actively snowing,
[2:23] Speaker 2: see the snow has fallen and then the winds come
[2:26] Speaker 2: and they can just close the road. So you can
[2:29] Speaker 2: really be in trouble. You go out that way, you
[2:30] Speaker 2: can't get back. So I tend to go just in
[2:33] Speaker 2: the spring and summer and fall.
[2:35] Speaker 1: So now turn to the topic of today's show is
[2:38] Speaker 1: the Liturgy of the Hours, or sometimes it's also referred
[2:40] Speaker 1: to as the Divine Office, and we'll get into what
[2:42] Speaker 1: that means. But before we do, and certainly apropos of
[2:46] Speaker 1: our topic, Bishop, we want to share the very happy
[2:48] Speaker 1: news that Word on Fire has just released our own edition,
[2:52] Speaker 1: full edition of the Liturgy of the Hours, the approved
[2:55] Speaker 1: USCCB translation of it. So Tell us a little bit
[2:58] Speaker 1: about why, under your leadership, of course, the ministry chose
[3:02] Speaker 1: to do this massive new production.
[3:04] Speaker 2: Well, you know, as you say, the new translation was
[3:06] Speaker 2: finally approved by the USCCB. So, you know, new editions
[3:09] Speaker 2: had to come out. And the USCCB kind of opened
[3:12] Speaker 2: a competition. They wanted to choose two publishers that would
[3:15] Speaker 2: bring out editions. So we decided to make a, you know, proposal.
[3:19] Speaker 2: And our publishing team is outstanding. You know, they make
[3:22] Speaker 2: beautiful books. And They, I think, made a dynamite presentation,
[3:26] Speaker 2: and so the USCCB chose us as one of the two.
[3:29] Speaker 2: But as you suggest in your question, I feel strongly
[3:32] Speaker 2: about it because, you know, encouraging not only priests and
[3:36] Speaker 2: religious to pray, but the people of God to pray,
[3:39] Speaker 2: that's a Vatican II imperative, right, to deepen the prayer
[3:43] Speaker 2: life of ordinary Catholics. And so, you know, we've had
[3:46] Speaker 2: our series with the little paperbacks of the morning prayer,
[3:49] Speaker 2: evening prayer, the Lurgy of the Hours. So we wanted
[3:52] Speaker 2: to make this contribution, too. And I was delighted when
[3:55] Speaker 2: we were chosen as one of the two.
[3:57] Speaker 1: How, from your perspective, does this project sort of instantiate
[4:01] Speaker 1: the pillar of leading with beauty?
[4:03] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Doug, I mean, all our books are beautifully made,
[4:05] Speaker 2: and it's, you know, hats off to the publishing team.
[4:09] Speaker 2: But that's the thing, is as you pray, that whole
[4:13] Speaker 2: experience should be an experience of beauty. So, yes, you
[4:16] Speaker 2: can take out your phone and you can, you know,
[4:19] Speaker 2: pray the office online, but it's not a very beautiful
[4:21] Speaker 2: thing to do. But when you're holding this gorgeous book
[4:24] Speaker 2: in your hand and leather bound and the pages and
[4:27] Speaker 2: the font and the print and all of that, it
[4:30] Speaker 2: enhances the experience immensely. And we've known that for centuries.
[4:34] Speaker 2: That's why, you know, monastic prayer with the Gregorian chant
[4:37] Speaker 2: and in a beautiful setting. Like, you know, the Benedictines
[4:41] Speaker 2: who were masters at prayer. I remember someone years ago
[4:43] Speaker 2: said to me, Benedictines always find beautiful places to build
[4:47] Speaker 2: their churches. And that's true. When you go to these abbeys.
[4:50] Speaker 2: they are gorgeous. And that's not an accident. And it's
[4:53] Speaker 2: not just decorative. That's part of the whole Benedictine sensibility.
[4:57] Speaker 1: What would you say is the sort of theological or
[4:59] Speaker 1: maybe even anthropological insight underneath that, that it's important to
[5:02] Speaker 1: have and to feel and to see beautiful things, and
[5:06] Speaker 1: that's connected to prayer?
[5:07] Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember this years ago, Anthony DeMello, the spiritual writer,
[5:10] Speaker 2: he said, just picking up the rosary and holding it
[5:15] Speaker 2: puts me in an attitude of prayer. And to me,
[5:17] Speaker 2: it's anti-Cartesian. See, I'm against Descartes and the way that
[5:21] Speaker 2: shaped modernity, which was very bifurcated. You know, Descartes distinguished
[5:25] Speaker 2: sharply between the res cogitans, the thinking thing, and then
[5:29] Speaker 2: what we call the res extensa, the extended thing, meaning
[5:32] Speaker 2: the bodily versus the interior. And there was a privileging
[5:36] Speaker 2: of the interior. You see in someone like Kant, you know,
[5:39] Speaker 2: that the only thing that's really good is a goodwill.
[5:43] Speaker 2: And it's divorced from consequences in the moral realm and
[5:46] Speaker 2: all of that. Well, you can see that theme over
[5:48] Speaker 2: and over again in modernity. I'm anti-modern in that way.
[5:51] Speaker 2: I think that's a bad instinct. Look at pre-modern people.
[5:54] Speaker 2: They were much more aware of the importance of inside
[5:58] Speaker 2: and outside. Like when they asked Aquinas, how come sacraments
[6:02] Speaker 2: have both matter and form? He said, because we're not angels.
[6:05] Speaker 2: If we were angels, we would just need the form.
[6:07] Speaker 2: But we're animals, too. We're embodied spirits. And so we
[6:11] Speaker 2: need both form and matter. Which is why when you're praying,
[6:14] Speaker 2: you say, oh, well, come on, just go inside and
[6:16] Speaker 2: pray to God. Well, yeah, but I'm not an angel.
[6:19] Speaker 2: And so how I sit or kneel or stand, the
[6:23] Speaker 2: environment I'm in, as DeMello said, holding that rosary or
[6:28] Speaker 2: holding this beautiful book with beautiful font and all of that,
[6:33] Speaker 2: that puts me in an attitude of prayer. And that's,
[6:36] Speaker 2: I think, also very Catholic understanding. If I were to
[6:38] Speaker 2: press that, you know, Descartes, but also Luther, who puts
[6:42] Speaker 2: salvation purely inside, right? This deep inner conviction. No, no,
[6:48] Speaker 2: we're not angels. It was Jacques-Marie Tan that said that,
[6:52] Speaker 2: that much of modernity, both in its religious and secular expressions,
[6:56] Speaker 2: is a kind of angelism, right? It turns us more
[6:59] Speaker 2: into angels. And we're not angels. And so we should
[7:02] Speaker 2: pray like embodied spirits.
[7:05] Speaker 1: Is there something about the physical– a text itself that
[7:09] Speaker 1: also sort of gets us beyond the physical into the
[7:13] Speaker 1: realm of the spiritual, sort of in the form of
[7:14] Speaker 1: a sacramental?
[7:15] Speaker 2: Of course, yeah. And that's the thing, both matter and form. And,
[7:18] Speaker 2: you know, that we rise from the physical to a
[7:21] Speaker 2: contemplation of the immaterial. That's Abbot Suger, right? Who's in
[7:25] Speaker 2: many ways the founder of Gothic architecture, which say that
[7:28] Speaker 2: the beautiful things of the world cause us to, I mean,
[7:31] Speaker 2: they lead us to a contemplation of what goes beyond
[7:34] Speaker 2: what we can see. But, you know, I'm with Aquinas, too,
[7:37] Speaker 2: who followed Aristotle. All knowledge begins in the senses. Human
[7:42] Speaker 2: experience begins in the senses. And now it rises to
[7:44] Speaker 2: a contemplation of the supra-sensible, but it begins in the senses.
[7:50] Speaker 2: That's a lesson, by the way, if you want to
[7:52] Speaker 2: press this, too. After Vatican II, we fell a bit
[7:55] Speaker 2: into the modern bifurcation. And we forgot about the importance
[7:59] Speaker 2: of the physical, the visual, the audible, etc., So no,
[8:04] Speaker 2: I'm against that angelism of modernity.
[8:06] Speaker 1: So I look more closely at the actual liturgy of
[8:09] Speaker 1: the hours itself. First, what's the sort of origin story
[8:13] Speaker 1: of the liturgy hours? Where do all the texts come from?
[8:16] Speaker 2: Well, there's a couple ways to look at that. One
[8:18] Speaker 2: is it's deeply biblical. Go back to the psalm that says,
[8:22] Speaker 2: you know, seven times a day I praise the Lord.
[8:25] Speaker 2: That's a very important text for the tradition, that throughout
[8:29] Speaker 2: the day as I'm sanctifying time you know, I pray
[8:33] Speaker 2: to the Lord. Well, look how that seven times got translated. Now,
[8:37] Speaker 2: come up from the Bible into, let's say, the early,
[8:40] Speaker 2: you know, church fathers, the desert fathers, people like Anthony.
[8:44] Speaker 2: And then from that emerges the monastic movement, right? People
[8:48] Speaker 2: like Benedict and others. Well, look at Benedict in prayer.
[8:51] Speaker 2: You begin with vigils, often in the middle of the night,
[8:54] Speaker 2: if you're doing it really seriously. Then you have lauds, right?
[8:56] Speaker 2: Morning prayer. Then you have these three hours of terse, sext,
[9:00] Speaker 2: and non- third hour, sixth hour, ninth hour. Then you
[9:04] Speaker 2: have Vespers, and then you have Compline. Look what you've got.
[9:08] Speaker 2: You've got seven times a day. So that's hearkening back
[9:11] Speaker 2: to the biblical warrant, seven times a day. And the
[9:15] Speaker 2: idea there is the sanctification of time. Now, when you're
[9:18] Speaker 2: a monk, that's your primary and full-time responsibility is to
[9:23] Speaker 2: prefer nothing to the worship of God. So that's the thing. Now,
[9:27] Speaker 2: we modified it a bit Let's say for busier diocesan clerics,
[9:32] Speaker 2: we have office of readings, we have morning prayer, and
[9:36] Speaker 2: then tersext and non, we kind of bring together, we
[9:39] Speaker 2: call it daytime prayer. You can do it morning, noon,
[9:41] Speaker 2: or afternoon, but we have vespers and compliments. So the
[9:44] Speaker 2: seven becomes five because we're a little more preoccupied with
[9:48] Speaker 2: the things of the world and with our pastoral work.
[9:51] Speaker 2: But the same inspiration, that time has to be sanctified
[9:55] Speaker 2: every day. That's why you know, it became kind of
[9:58] Speaker 2: a joke in a way before the council, sometimes priests
[10:01] Speaker 2: would just take out their office and they would pray
[10:03] Speaker 2: the whole thing, you know, from vigils to Compline first
[10:08] Speaker 2: thing in the morning. Well, it's kind of defeating the purpose.
[10:11] Speaker 2: You're meant to, no, you're meant to pause at different
[10:13] Speaker 2: points during the day. and sanctify those hours.
[10:16] Speaker 1: Is this a recommended practice for priests, or are they
[10:19] Speaker 1: required to do it?
[10:19] Speaker 2: Well, it's required. I mean, if you're a cleric in
[10:21] Speaker 2: the church, you're required to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. And,
[10:23] Speaker 2: you know, it's an interesting thing. You're not required to
[10:25] Speaker 2: say Mass every day. Almost all priests do, you know,
[10:28] Speaker 2: but you're not required to pray Mass every day. But
[10:30] Speaker 2: you are required to pray the office every day. So
[10:34] Speaker 2: that five times a day, you are to pray the
[10:36] Speaker 2: Liturgy of the Hours. And, you know, the thing, too,
[10:39] Speaker 2: with clerics, yes, it edifies you. It has that purpose.
[10:43] Speaker 2: But I always tell my seminarians, you know, it's not
[10:47] Speaker 2: primarily for you. You're praying the official prayer of the
[10:50] Speaker 2: church for the sake of the church. So think of
[10:53] Speaker 2: wherever you're assigned, the people you're serving, you're praying that office,
[10:59] Speaker 2: that obligation for them, right? So you say, well, I'm
[11:02] Speaker 2: not in the mood to pray in my office today. Well,
[11:04] Speaker 2: I don't care. It's not a question of whether you're
[11:06] Speaker 2: in the mood. It's something you're obliged to do for
[11:08] Speaker 2: your people. That gives you a whole different take on
[11:12] Speaker 2: the liturgy of the hours.
[11:13] Speaker 1: Are the hours meant to be prayed individually or in community,
[11:16] Speaker 1: or does it matter?
[11:17] Speaker 2: Well, you can both. You know, the Catholic sensibility always
[11:21] Speaker 2: tends toward the communitarian. And I'm unusual in a way
[11:26] Speaker 2: of being a seminarian, priest, bishop. I've prayed a lot
[11:29] Speaker 2: in common over the years, you know, in my seminary
[11:32] Speaker 2: years or got together with a small group. And then
[11:37] Speaker 2: if I go to a monastery and pray with the monks,
[11:39] Speaker 2: of course, it's being prayed communally. But then as a
[11:42] Speaker 2: diocesan priest, you end up praying it a lot on
[11:44] Speaker 2: your own, too. So this morning, I went to my
[11:49] Speaker 2: chapel in my house, and I prayed— as part of my
[11:52] Speaker 2: holy hour, I usually pray some of the office. I
[11:55] Speaker 2: might do the office of readings and morning prayer, and
[11:58] Speaker 2: I pray that alone. And so I love that. I mean,
[12:02] Speaker 2: it becomes a very important part of my personal prayer
[12:04] Speaker 2: life is praying the liturgy. But it's always for the church.
[12:10] Speaker 2: and therefore has a communitarian aspect, even if you're praying
[12:13] Speaker 2: it by yourself.
[12:14] Speaker 1: Tell us a little more about the impact or the
[12:16] Speaker 1: way in which the liturgies have shaped you and continue
[12:19] Speaker 1: to shape your work as a priest and as a
[12:21] Speaker 1: bishop and as the head of Word on Fire.
[12:23] Speaker 2: It's indispensable. The older I get, the more I agree
[12:27] Speaker 2: with John Paul II about the indispensability for a priest
[12:30] Speaker 2: of the Liturgy of the Hours. See, what I like
[12:33] Speaker 2: about it is it grounds you in something that's so objective.
[12:38] Speaker 2: it's very easy for us sinners to slide into this, oh, well,
[12:42] Speaker 2: you know, I'm a prayerful person. Yeah, I pray, you know,
[12:46] Speaker 2: I'm in the car and I'm asking God or I'm
[12:47] Speaker 2: in nature and I'm praying.
[12:49] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[12:50] Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, sometimes that's true, but no, no, you're obligated, pal,
[12:55] Speaker 2: to pray these prayers. And so it grounds you in
[13:00] Speaker 2: a way that the vague sort of I'm a prayerful
[13:02] Speaker 2: person just never does. And then You know, it's the
[13:06] Speaker 2: beauty of the scriptures. The Liturgy of the Hours is
[13:09] Speaker 2: massively scriptural. It immerses you in a biblical world and
[13:14] Speaker 2: a biblical sensibility. Biblical language will come to your lips
[13:19] Speaker 2: very readily because you're immersed in this language. I just
[13:24] Speaker 2: find it shapes me in every way.
[13:27] Speaker 1: The Liturgy of the Hours is oftentimes also referred to
[13:30] Speaker 1: as the divine office or the prayer of the church church.
[13:33] Speaker 1: What do those additional appellations mean?
[13:35] Speaker 2: Well, I've been talking about the prayer of the church there,
[13:37] Speaker 2: that it's a prayer, like it's the church officially praying
[13:41] Speaker 2: for the world. It's a bishop or a priest or
[13:44] Speaker 2: a deacon praying for his people. So it's an ecclesial activity.
[13:51] Speaker 2: Office is interesting to me. That's how priests often refer
[13:54] Speaker 2: to it. I'm going to pray my office. I pray
[13:56] Speaker 2: my office today. Well, laficium in Latin would have the
[13:58] Speaker 2: sense of like duty or obligation, like when you hold
[14:01] Speaker 2: an office position. It means you've got a responsibility, right?
[14:05] Speaker 2: So the office, I like that. It's your duty. It's
[14:09] Speaker 2: your responsibility. I'm not like just, oh, I'm my own.
[14:13] Speaker 2: I'm praying because I'm in the mood. No, no, no.
[14:15] Speaker 2: You've got an obligation to pray. And so praying my office,
[14:21] Speaker 2: I like that language.
[14:23] Speaker 1: How is the Liturgy of the Hours related to the
[14:24] Speaker 1: Liturgy of the Holy Mass?
[14:27] Speaker 2: Well— Think of like today as we record these words,
[14:30] Speaker 2: it's Feast of St. Mary Magdalene. So, you know, the
[14:34] Speaker 2: closing prayer for the morning prayer is the Collect for Mass.
[14:40] Speaker 2: The Antiphon for the Benedictus would be echoing prayers at
[14:46] Speaker 2: the Mass. The Liturgy of the Hours is leading you
[14:51] Speaker 2: to the Mass. It's coming from the Mass. They kind
[14:55] Speaker 2: of echo and speak to each other, I'd say. If
[14:58] Speaker 2: mass is the supreme prayer of the church, then all
[15:01] Speaker 2: the other ones are kind of satellites around it. And
[15:04] Speaker 2: I think you see that with the Lord of the Hours.
[15:07] Speaker 2: They speak to each other. They kind of hearken to
[15:10] Speaker 2: each other.
[15:12] Speaker 1: What makes a form of prayer liturgical as opposed to
[15:15] Speaker 1: being a kind of private devotion? Is there an objective difference?
[15:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, because liturgical prayer would be the official prayer of
[15:22] Speaker 2: the church.
[15:22] Speaker 1: Right.
[15:24] Speaker 2: You know, the word liturgy has a sense of the
[15:26] Speaker 2: work of the people. That's what it means. But it's
[15:29] Speaker 2: the official prayer the church is offering to God and
[15:35] Speaker 2: on behalf of the members of the church. Let's say
[15:37] Speaker 2: I'm praying my rosary in the car. Well, that's a
[15:40] Speaker 2: private devotion, right, that I have or a devotion to
[15:43] Speaker 2: a saint. That would not be liturgical prayer. It always
[15:47] Speaker 2: has that communitarian ecclesial dimension, makes it, I think, liturgical.
[15:52] Speaker 1: You've noticed how deeply connected the liturgy is to Scripture,
[15:57] Speaker 1: both Old Testament and New Testament. Can you tell us
[15:59] Speaker 1: a little bit about why the Psalms in particular feature
[16:02] Speaker 1: so prominently?
[16:03] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[16:04] Speaker 2: I remember I started praying the office, not in its
[16:07] Speaker 2: entirety because I wasn't a priest yet, but when I
[16:09] Speaker 2: was a seminarian. It was a Catholic U. I was
[16:12] Speaker 2: a philosophy student, but in the college seminary. And it
[16:16] Speaker 2: was Robert Sokolowski, my great mentor, who said, you know,
[16:21] Speaker 2: would you claim that God is the most important person
[16:24] Speaker 2: in your life? Like God is the supreme value for you. Well,
[16:28] Speaker 2: how often do you speak to him? And well, I
[16:32] Speaker 2: guess I do, you know. And his point was that
[16:35] Speaker 2: that's why you have to pray in this disciplined way.
[16:37] Speaker 2: It's like saying, that guy's my best friend. Oh, really? Well,
[16:40] Speaker 2: how often do you see him? Once a year. Well,
[16:42] Speaker 2: he's not your best friend by definition, right? Your best
[16:45] Speaker 2: friend is someone that you, you are in steady contact with.
[16:48] Speaker 2: And it was after that remark, I remember I went
[16:50] Speaker 2: out to, it was, it's gone now, the Newman bookstore
[16:53] Speaker 2: in Washington. It was this good theological bookstore. I was what, 19.
[16:57] Speaker 2: And I bought the one volume, Liturgy of the Hours.
[17:01] Speaker 2: And that's when I started because it was Sokolowski saying, well,
[17:03] Speaker 2: if you take this seriously, then you're going to pray. And, uh,
[17:07] Speaker 2: And what did I— this is your question— what did I first notice?
[17:10] Speaker 2: The Psalms. The Psalms are essential to it. They're the
[17:14] Speaker 2: heart of the Lurgy of the Hours. You know, all
[17:16] Speaker 2: the different hours focus on the Psalms. The Psalms are
[17:20] Speaker 2: the great prayer book of the church, the songbook of
[17:23] Speaker 2: the church. Longest book in the Bible, by the way,
[17:25] Speaker 2: this book of Psalms. And it's the church expressing itself
[17:33] Speaker 2: to God in order. every possible emotional and intellectual frame.
[17:40] Speaker 2: The Psalms are full of joy. They're full of praise.
[17:44] Speaker 2: They're full of anger. They're full of anguish. They're full
[17:48] Speaker 2: of retribution. The whole range of human experience. As human
[17:53] Speaker 2: beings are in the presence of God, this is how
[17:56] Speaker 2: they sound and what they say and what they feel.
[18:00] Speaker 2: And the Psalms express that better than anything else. And
[18:03] Speaker 2: so it's wonderful to me that Those ancient texts, they're
[18:08] Speaker 2: still the way the church speaks to God, you know,
[18:12] Speaker 2: and with the same emotions. Think of, you know, that
[18:16] Speaker 2: Psalm 88 that we always pray Compline on Fridays. And
[18:19] Speaker 2: it's this most desperate, it's this desperate Psalm. It's someone
[18:23] Speaker 2: at the absolute extreme of anxiety and loss and fear.
[18:28] Speaker 2: And my one companion is darkness. You've taken away all
[18:31] Speaker 2: my friends. it's like I'm lying down with the dead
[18:35] Speaker 2: in their graves. Those are all the lines of that psalm.
[18:40] Speaker 2: Sometimes you indeed feel that way. But as a very
[18:44] Speaker 2: wise teacher once said to me, maybe you don't feel
[18:47] Speaker 2: that way, but trust me, someone in the body of
[18:50] Speaker 2: Christ right now feels that way, and you're praying for
[18:53] Speaker 2: him or for her. But that range of emotion and
[18:57] Speaker 2: this sheer exaltation, you know, that's in the psalms and
[19:00] Speaker 2: the joy of being alive and being God's creature, the
[19:05] Speaker 2: fear of the anger of my enemies. It's all there.
[19:10] Speaker 2: And that's why it's the great prayer book of the church.
[19:13] Speaker 1: It's important to emphasize there that we can't have this
[19:17] Speaker 1: range of emotions while we're praying. I think prayer sometimes
[19:21] Speaker 1: is seen as it has to be kind of sort
[19:22] Speaker 1: of a pious kind of either supplication or expression of gratitude,
[19:26] Speaker 1: but we can be praying in anguish.
[19:28] Speaker 2: Right. And here's the theological justification for that. is God
[19:33] Speaker 2: is omnipresent and omniscient, which means, of course, God knows
[19:36] Speaker 2: that I'm angry. You think I'm covering it up? I
[19:39] Speaker 2: better not let God know how angry I am. He
[19:41] Speaker 2: already knows how angry we are. So, tell him. I
[19:44] Speaker 2: better not tell God how lost and sad I am.
[19:46] Speaker 2: He already knows, right? So, you know, stop playing games.
[19:51] Speaker 2: And the Psalms are a great way to avoid playing
[19:53] Speaker 2: games with God. So, I mean, surrender to the Psalm.
[19:57] Speaker 2: I often tell my students, surrender to whatever that emotion
[20:01] Speaker 2: or feeling or thought is in the Psalms and let
[20:04] Speaker 2: it sort of pray in you.
[20:07] Speaker 1: Let's move now more directly to the question of how
[20:10] Speaker 1: and why all Catholics should be praying. Certainly, we'd encourage
[20:14] Speaker 1: them to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. To start, Bishop,
[20:17] Speaker 1: what spiritual benefits would you say the liturgy offers to
[20:21] Speaker 1: lay Catholics that we're not going to get just through
[20:23] Speaker 1: the Mass and through praying the Rosary and the Divine
[20:25] Speaker 1: Mercy and praying to the Sacred Heart and all of
[20:29] Speaker 1: the great devotions that we have? What's distinctive about the.
[20:31] Speaker 2: Liturgy for us? I would say the sanctification of time.
[20:34] Speaker 2: I remember, this comes to my mind all the time,
[20:37] Speaker 2: Wilton Gregory, the now retired Archbishop of Washington, was the
[20:41] Speaker 2: liturgy professor at Mundelein Seminary when I was a young kid.
[20:44] Speaker 2: And we had just gotten to the seminary. It was
[20:46] Speaker 2: like orientation week. And I remember Wilton came in to
[20:50] Speaker 2: the chapel, his albin stole on, and he had the
[20:52] Speaker 2: liturgy hours in his hand. And he gave us a
[20:55] Speaker 2: talk about the sanctification of time. And I've never forgotten it,
[21:00] Speaker 2: just his way of presenting it and his person kind
[21:03] Speaker 2: of embodying it that, He said, all right, now, brothers,
[21:06] Speaker 2: you're entering the seminary. So every day, like morning, noon, night,
[21:11] Speaker 2: you put yourself in the presence of God. You sanctify
[21:14] Speaker 2: that moment. And that's the purpose of prayer. I think
[21:17] Speaker 2: that's the liturgy of the hours. That's the idea, is
[21:20] Speaker 2: that we're going to walk through time with God. I
[21:24] Speaker 2: think that's the most distinctive. But also, it's deeply ecclesial
[21:27] Speaker 2: and communitarian. It links you to the wider prayer, the
[21:31] Speaker 2: same way the Mass does. It's the same Mass all
[21:34] Speaker 2: over the world. same text and all that. Well, same
[21:37] Speaker 2: with the Liturgy of the Hours, same text being prayed
[21:39] Speaker 2: all over the world by, you know, individual Catholics, by monks,
[21:43] Speaker 2: by priests, by nuns, you know, that's the communitarian side
[21:47] Speaker 2: of it.
[21:47] Speaker 1: You know, Bishop, in 1 Thessalonians, St. Paul gives us
[21:50] Speaker 1: the directive to pray without ceasing. From a lay perspective,
[21:53] Speaker 1: it can be difficult to understand what that looks like.
[21:55] Speaker 1: Would praying the Liturgy of the Hours sort of fall
[21:58] Speaker 1: into that category.
[21:59] Speaker 2: Yeah it gestures toward it you know i'm a great
[22:01] Speaker 2: devotee of the jesus prayer and that was that's the
[22:03] Speaker 2: way that's often construed so when you you know lord
[22:06] Speaker 2: jesus christ son of the living god have mercy on
[22:08] Speaker 2: me a sinner repeated over and over and over again
[22:10] Speaker 2: in such a way you know what i pray very
[22:13] Speaker 2: often i i will wake up in the middle of
[22:14] Speaker 2: the night i've got one of those little shakti things
[22:16] Speaker 2: one of the little prayer ropes you know and uh
[22:20] Speaker 2: it helps to get back to sleep that's true but
[22:22] Speaker 2: i'll just take that and i'll start praying the jesus
[22:24] Speaker 2: prayer um but it's meant to get into your system,
[22:28] Speaker 2: so to speak. And I mean that both intellectually, spiritually,
[22:31] Speaker 2: and even physically, because you're meant to breathe in and
[22:34] Speaker 2: breathe out rhythmically as you pray it. So that's the,
[22:37] Speaker 2: you know, how do you pray constantly by getting that
[22:40] Speaker 2: prayer so deep in you? Okay. But another gesture toward
[22:44] Speaker 2: it would be the Lourdes of the Hours, you know?
[22:46] Speaker 2: It's like, okay, boy, I've prayed that whole thing, so
[22:48] Speaker 2: I guess I'm good for a week. I remember my
[22:51] Speaker 2: dear brother spoke at my first Mass, and, you know,
[22:55] Speaker 2: The ordination ceremony is like, you know, two and a
[22:57] Speaker 2: half hours long. My brother's opening quip was, I think
[23:00] Speaker 2: we've got now our obligations covered for the next 10 years,
[23:03] Speaker 2: you know. Well, that's not the way we think about it,
[23:06] Speaker 2: but that, you know, every day. So I'm going to
[23:09] Speaker 2: pray these prayers.
[23:10] Speaker 3: Uh-huh.
[23:10] Speaker 2: Now, next day. Yep. Same thing. Next day.
[23:13] Speaker 3: Uh-huh.
[23:15] Speaker 2: So the praying constantly gets into your bones.
[23:19] Speaker 1: From a practical perspective, thinking about lay Catholics still, who
[23:23] Speaker 1: perhaps have never even really heard of the Liturgy of
[23:25] Speaker 1: the Hours until maybe watching this episode, what's a good
[23:28] Speaker 1: way to get started? Recognizing that they are complex and
[23:31] Speaker 1: they are hefty and it is a major commitment.
[23:34] Speaker 2: I don't want to put our two things in competition
[23:36] Speaker 2: with each other, but one of the things that we
[23:38] Speaker 2: did at Word on Fire is you can subscribe to
[23:40] Speaker 2: get these monthly little booklets, right? Which have, they have
[23:43] Speaker 2: the morning prayer, I think Compline too, right? Is in
[23:45] Speaker 2: that book. So you might say that, you know, the
[23:48] Speaker 2: really essential morning prayer, evening prayer, they don't have the
[23:50] Speaker 2: whole thing. I might recommend starting with that. And they're
[23:54] Speaker 2: very user-friendly. They're little paperbacks. You don't have to flip
[23:58] Speaker 2: around a lot. We may talk about that. One of
[24:00] Speaker 2: the challenges is trying to get through the book.
[24:02] Speaker 1: Yeah, please do explain that.
[24:03] Speaker 2: Like, what's a ribbon?
[24:04] Speaker 1: What function do they have in the full liturgy?
[24:06] Speaker 2: Yeah, and just to finish that thought is we design
[24:09] Speaker 2: those little booklets to avoid that, to make them user-friendly.
[24:13] Speaker 2: I might recommend getting those to get into it. Well, yes.
[24:17] Speaker 2: I remember even when I forgot my first one, I
[24:19] Speaker 2: was like, oh, my God. Because it's this big book,
[24:23] Speaker 2: they're about this thick, you know, and they've got, they're
[24:26] Speaker 2: divided by weeks, week one, week two, week three, week four.
[24:30] Speaker 2: Then there's propers, which are prayers that are proper to
[24:33] Speaker 2: a particular day. Then you have the office of readings,
[24:36] Speaker 2: which involves readings from the Bible, lengthy, and from the
[24:40] Speaker 2: church fathers, typically. And that's coordinated with the Psalms for
[24:44] Speaker 2: the office of readings, which is different than the Psalms
[24:46] Speaker 2: for morning prayer. Then you've got the saints' days, which
[24:49] Speaker 2: are themselves unique. Now, all those are marked by ribbons. Now,
[24:53] Speaker 2: once you get the hang of it, it's not all
[24:55] Speaker 2: that complicated, but it does take a while because you
[24:58] Speaker 2: might begin with the Psalms from Tuesday, week one, but
[25:03] Speaker 2: now you've got to go back for the Office of Readings,
[25:05] Speaker 2: and then maybe it's a saints' day, so the prayer
[25:08] Speaker 2: is going to be from the prayer for the saints.
[25:11] Speaker 2: I know it sounds very complicated. You get the hang
[25:13] Speaker 2: of it. but the ribbons are all there to mark
[25:15] Speaker 2: these different parts of the hours. And so there is
[25:19] Speaker 2: a pheromone wheel called flipping around. You flip from this
[25:21] Speaker 2: to that and now here, and that can get sort
[25:24] Speaker 2: of frustrating for people. The worst week of the year,
[25:27] Speaker 2: talk to any priest, is the week after Christmas. There
[25:32] Speaker 2: is such complexity in the flipping of the book after Christmas.
[25:37] Speaker 2: I remember I was on retreat in California with the bishops,
[25:41] Speaker 2: and our retreat director said, You know, brothers, I would
[25:44] Speaker 2: encourage you, let's just pray from our iPads because, see,
[25:47] Speaker 2: and the iPad, the iBrievery, it's all worked out. And
[25:52] Speaker 2: it's all there. And a number of the guys said, no, no,
[25:55] Speaker 2: we don't like that. And he said, all right, well,
[25:57] Speaker 2: you know, good luck or off you go. Because it's
[26:02] Speaker 2: especially Christmas, for some reason, it's very complicated with the flipping.
[26:07] Speaker 2: You do get the hang of it. I tell people,
[26:09] Speaker 2: don't worry about that. You'll figure it out. Well, two things.
[26:11] Speaker 1: One, they're in the pipeline. The Word on Fire publishing
[26:15] Speaker 1: team is going to be producing some books that explain
[26:17] Speaker 1: in detail, in a very user-friendly way, how to pray
[26:20] Speaker 1: the liturgy.
[26:20] Speaker 2: And we have extra ribbons in the new one, right? Actually,
[26:23] Speaker 2: it sounds silly, but it's very useful. It's helpful. The
[26:26] Speaker 2: more ribbons you have, the more easily you can mark
[26:28] Speaker 2: the book.
[26:28] Speaker 1: And they connected to some arguments you were making earlier
[26:31] Speaker 1: in this episode is maybe there's something good about having
[26:34] Speaker 1: to work to pray.
[26:35] Speaker 2: Yes. Yes, quite right. And that's the thing, you know,
[26:38] Speaker 2: I do pray on my phone or, you know, sometimes
[26:42] Speaker 2: if I'm on a trip or something, or maybe I
[26:45] Speaker 2: forgot to throw the book in the bag, and I'll
[26:47] Speaker 2: do that. Or in the car, for example, I've got
[26:50] Speaker 2: an audible version of it. And so I'll listen to
[26:54] Speaker 2: Vespers or Compton in the car. Okay, I'll do that.
[26:57] Speaker 2: But it's much, much better Because when you take your
[27:01] Speaker 2: phone out and you're praying on it, okay, you're getting
[27:04] Speaker 2: it done. But the phone is also used for all
[27:06] Speaker 2: kinds of other stuff. So it's more of a secular thing.
[27:09] Speaker 2: You know, Spotify and Waze and YouTube. Oh, and I'm
[27:14] Speaker 2: also praying on it. It's not like I'm taking from
[27:19] Speaker 2: the table or the shelf this sacred book, this beautiful
[27:22] Speaker 2: book that's designed for one purpose, to pray.
[27:25] Speaker 3: Right.
[27:27] Speaker 2: That's better, although we all end up using it for
[27:31] Speaker 2: different reasons, the electronic stuff.
[27:33] Speaker 1: I imagine I'm not alone in sharing that I go
[27:36] Speaker 1: through experiences of fatigue and even tedium when praying, and
[27:41] Speaker 1: that includes when I pray the Liturgy of the Hour. So, Bish,
[27:44] Speaker 1: what's your advice on how to work through that, especially
[27:47] Speaker 1: when it seems to be lasting a long time?
[27:49] Speaker 2: Yeah. Keep going. That's the main thing is keep going. Don't,
[27:52] Speaker 2: don't give into it. So the great danger is I'm
[27:54] Speaker 2: going to dry period. I'm not really into this. So
[27:56] Speaker 2: I'm going to give up. No, no, no. Now, especially
[28:00] Speaker 2: it's like anything else, you know, you're practicing the piano,
[28:02] Speaker 2: you're practicing football and you go through a difficult stretch around.
[28:05] Speaker 2: This practice is so annoying. I give up. Yeah. You'll
[28:08] Speaker 2: never get there. So hang in there. But also there's
[28:12] Speaker 2: a lot of literature in the great spiritual tradition about
[28:14] Speaker 2: that dryness and prayer and distraction and prayer. You know,
[28:18] Speaker 2: one thing a lot of the masters say is like, okay,
[28:20] Speaker 2: you're being distracted. All right, become aware of that. So
[28:24] Speaker 2: instead of thinking about the psalm, I'm thinking about, you know,
[28:27] Speaker 2: my next meeting that I'm worried about. All right, I
[28:30] Speaker 2: see it. Meeting, got it. Now, let go of it.
[28:34] Speaker 2: Turn back. Don't fight it so much as acknowledge it
[28:39] Speaker 2: and then let it go and then turn from it.
[28:44] Speaker 2: If you're trying to fight it, I think you'll end
[28:46] Speaker 2: up in a worse spiritual space. Acknowledge the distraction. Okay, okay. Yes, yes, yes.
[28:51] Speaker 2: I see you. But now I'm going back to the psalm.
[28:53] Speaker 2: And see, let the particularity of the psalm ground you
[28:59] Speaker 2: or the prayer. The danger is I'm going to pray
[29:01] Speaker 2: now when I'm distracted. Now, what am I going back to? Oh, yeah,
[29:05] Speaker 2: I'm trying not to pray. No, there's this text that's better.
[29:10] Speaker 2: That's helpful, I think. So, you know, the old Thomas
[29:14] Speaker 2: Merton thing is, take the time. So you got to
[29:16] Speaker 2: do that. But then when you've taken the time, acknowledge
[29:20] Speaker 2: a distraction, acknowledge that, and then calmly turn back to
[29:24] Speaker 2: the words, you know?
[29:25] Speaker 1: So as you're saying this, it also helps us answer
[29:28] Speaker 1: the question of those who say, I don't know what
[29:30] Speaker 1: I'm supposed to say when I pray.
[29:32] Speaker 2: Is the church is telling us. Yeah. Yeah. And then
[29:35] Speaker 2: they're right. And it's okay. I mean, I, I love
[29:37] Speaker 2: to just a moment of, of like, for example, my
[29:39] Speaker 2: holy hour in the morning, it's not entirely taken up
[29:43] Speaker 2: by the office. That's part of it. Part of it
[29:46] Speaker 2: is I look at him. He looks at me. Part
[29:50] Speaker 2: of it is Lord. I'm kind of lost. Help me
[29:52] Speaker 2: with this. Or I don't know what to do about that. Um,
[29:56] Speaker 2: You know, and I'll be honest with you, and it's
[29:58] Speaker 2: amazing to me how often I get an answer is, Lord,
[30:02] Speaker 2: I got to give this talk in a couple of weeks.
[30:03] Speaker 2: What should I talk about? You know, Lord, I'm talking
[30:05] Speaker 2: to the deacons next week, and what do you want
[30:07] Speaker 2: me to say to them? Just the other day, we
[30:10] Speaker 2: have this big meeting every year in Lake Okoboji, which
[30:13] Speaker 2: is in Iowa. All the priests of my diocese go there,
[30:15] Speaker 2: and I'm going to be speaking to them. And I
[30:17] Speaker 2: was out for a walk, and I just said, Okoboji, Lord,
[30:21] Speaker 2: what do you want me to say? And by the
[30:22] Speaker 2: end of the walk, honestly, I thought, yeah, yeah, that's
[30:25] Speaker 2: what I'll talk about. So I do that too in prayer.
[30:28] Speaker 2: That's why John Paul II always brought a pad and
[30:31] Speaker 2: pen into his holy hour because he got ideas for sermons.
[30:36] Speaker 2: Fulton Sheen, you know, what do you do during the
[30:38] Speaker 2: holy hour? He said, anything you want. You know, so
[30:41] Speaker 2: for a priest to pray part of your office anyway,
[30:44] Speaker 2: I think is a good use of the holy hour,
[30:46] Speaker 2: but not every minute of it. Some of it to
[30:47] Speaker 2: me is just, you know, asking a question or, you know,
[30:51] Speaker 2: seeking communion with the Lord. That's okay. Fr.
[30:54] Speaker 1: Bishop, before we turn into our listener question, what kind
[30:55] Speaker 1: of relationship should we see between praying the Liturgy of
[30:58] Speaker 1: the Hours and evangelization, specifically evangelization of the culture?
[31:02] Speaker 2: Yeah, because all prayer leads to evangelization, all evangelization leads
[31:07] Speaker 2: back to prayer. They're in this mutually implicative relationship, right?
[31:11] Speaker 2: Just like the liturgy is meant to lead to the streets,
[31:13] Speaker 2: the streets to the liturgy, that idea from the liturgical
[31:16] Speaker 2: movement people. Yeah, I think the closer you get to
[31:20] Speaker 2: the Lord, the more you want to share that. The
[31:22] Speaker 2: more you're with the people of God, the more you
[31:24] Speaker 2: want to commune with the Lord to deepen your friendship
[31:27] Speaker 2: with them. They're just mutually implicative. I think a good
[31:32] Speaker 2: evangelist has got to be a person of prayer, or
[31:34] Speaker 2: you'll end up just being a smart aleck or someone
[31:37] Speaker 2: that knows a lot about the faith and likes to
[31:40] Speaker 2: show off or whatever. So unless you're grounded in prayer,
[31:44] Speaker 2: you're not going to do evangelization very well.
[31:49] Speaker 1: It is now time for a listener question. Today we
[31:51] Speaker 1: have Chinonye from Minnesota asking about how our individual prayers
[31:56] Speaker 1: can positively affect others.
[31:59] Speaker 2: Okay.
[32:01] Speaker 3: Hi, Bishop Barron. This is Chinonye from Minnesota. My question
[32:05] Speaker 3: is around prayer. I understand when we pray, we get
[32:08] Speaker 3: changed because God's mind doesn't change. But how does this
[32:12] Speaker 3: work when we pray for others, for our country, for
[32:15] Speaker 3: our community? What effect does our praying for them really have?
[32:19] Speaker 3: Thank you.
[32:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very searching question, actually, and it's a
[32:22] Speaker 2: tough one. It's, I think, one of the more puzzling
[32:25] Speaker 2: theological questions, because as you quite rightly say, God is
[32:28] Speaker 2: the unmoved mover, the uncaused cause. So it's not as
[32:31] Speaker 2: though our prayer makes God do something he wouldn't otherwise
[32:36] Speaker 2: have done, right? He's not like some reluctant king that,
[32:40] Speaker 2: you know, if we just beg him enough, maybe we'll
[32:43] Speaker 2: change his mind. That's just the wrong way to think
[32:45] Speaker 2: about it. Thomas Aquinas says this, that God in his
[32:49] Speaker 2: providence is so deigned that our prayer would be correlated
[32:54] Speaker 2: to the grace he wants to give through his providence.
[32:58] Speaker 2: And so it doesn't mean my prayer is causing God,
[33:01] Speaker 2: but God is pleased to correlate my petition to what
[33:05] Speaker 2: he wants to do. So when you pray for somebody,
[33:09] Speaker 2: think about this. This is what Herbert McCabe said, the
[33:12] Speaker 2: Dominican theologian. Whatever's right in your prayer is God-oriented. already
[33:17] Speaker 2: praying in you. So I'm praying for someone that I
[33:21] Speaker 2: love that they might, that's already God prompting me to
[33:27] Speaker 2: ask what God wants to do. That's more the way
[33:32] Speaker 2: Aquinas gets at it. So I'm not moving the unmoved mover,
[33:36] Speaker 2: but I'm allowing God to pray in me so as
[33:41] Speaker 2: to coordinate my desire to what God wants to do.
[33:44] Speaker 2: I know that's, it's a little bit technical, but it's
[33:46] Speaker 2: interesting because it can seem like a simple question. It's not.
[33:50] Speaker 2: It's a very complicated question of how our prayer doesn't
[33:54] Speaker 2: affect God, how it fits into the divine providence. And
[33:58] Speaker 2: that's a quick answer to it.
[34:01] Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much, Shinoni, for reaching out to us.
[34:03] Speaker 1: If you would like to ask Bishop Barron a question
[34:06] Speaker 1: for a future Word on Fire show, please visit askbishopbarron.com. Again,
[34:10] Speaker 1: that's askbishopbarron.com. We're always grateful to hear from you. That's
[34:15] Speaker 1: all the time we have for today, Bishop. Thank you
[34:17] Speaker 1: for another fantastic conversation.
[34:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, always good talking to you.
[34:20] Speaker 1: That does it for us today. Thanks for joining us
[34:22] Speaker 1: on the Word on Fire show. If you're interested in
[34:24] Speaker 1: learning more about how Word on Fire can help you
[34:26] Speaker 1: grow closer to Christ, become a better evangelist with and
[34:29] Speaker 1: for others, and work for the common good, consider joining
[34:32] Speaker 1: the Word on Fire Institute. Check us out at institute.wordonfire.org.
[34:36] Speaker 1: That's institute.wordonfire.org. We'll see you next time.

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