The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Would you like to learn what each of the hours symbolize, where to find your place in the book, what time to pray, and how to enter more deeply into the Word of God in the Psalms?

If so, then we would like to invite you to learn to pray, The Little Office of The Blessed Virgin Mary, so loved and prayed by so many Saints, Martyrs, Laity, Religious, Priests and Popes to honor the Mother of God through the centuries. This is not an in-depth historical study into the origins and rubrics of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but an invitation to learn how to pray these little hours.

Perhaps you already have the book in your possession but are uncertain how to proceed, or maybe the Office appeals to you through your own personal love of Mary, the Mother of God.

The readings and offices within the book are far less variable and easier to find than the Great Office, or the Divine Office, also known as Christian Prayer, therefore they are within the capability of everyone to understand and to pray; their very repetition causes them eventually to be written on our minds and hearts. Perhaps you already pray the Christian Prayer of the Church but would like to bring to it a special devotion to Mary?

We would like to invite those who are interested to receive personal guidance with the Office — not simply in the way of an impersonal “form letter”, but through the personal instruction of one of the staff at the Boston Catholic Journal who will guide you through any difficulties you may experience, someone who will also help you understand more deeply the meaning of the Psalms and their place in your daily life.

Whatever the reason we would like to help you begin to pray this Office which will lead us to a more intimate acquaintance with Jesus Christ through Mary … and through Jesus and Mary begin to live our lives more authentically in Christ.
 

We highly recommend this version of the book published by Baronius Press in English and Latin. There are other versions of a Little Office to Mary, but this is the one that we recommend and are using for direction. It has a leather cover and superior binding. It ships from the US for American customers. We derive no profit whatever from Baronius Press which simply publishes excellent quality Catholic books.

Helpful Suggestions with your, “Little Office” ^*

First, a Note to Men

Praying the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary is very much a manly aspiration to devout Catholic men, as it is a womanly aspiration to devout Catholic women.  Devotion to Mary throughout history has been the hallmark of a devout and manly Catholic unafraid to express his love for, his commitment to — and his defense of — Mary Most Holy.  Mary needs, Our Lady calls to, her  Joseph's in this world.

Mary needs her Josephs! May this be a call to men, this call to enter into, and to pray, the Little Office, and honor her who is so worthy of honor.
 

Beginning:

The first step upon having obtained your copy of The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary is to simply to become familiar with the book. Get use to handling the little book and it will grow to be a familiar friend and the means of communing with your God and honoring Mary in a unique way.

You will notice immediately both the color of the book and its title. The book is blue, and this already communicates quite a bit. Blue is the color of faithfulness, and we are entering into communion with the Blessed Mother of God, the faithful woman, faithful to the Words of her Son and faithful unto the end when she stood underneath the Cross of her Suffering Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior.

Mary is often depicted wearing a blue gown and a white veil. The blue is for her faithful love and the white for her purity. The Office is a service, a religious rite, implying a freely offered and faithful commitment. In this case we have been moved and entrusted by the Holy Spirit to pray to God and to honor Mary.

Again let us examine the title, The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mary the Immaculta, who conceived Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit, who gave birth to her Son while remaining, by a singular grace of God, a virgin. Mary is worthy of our love and all honor. To pray these offices with our heart and attention is a gift of love to Mary … a gift given in union with Holy Mother the Church throughout the world.

First, we must understand that the Praying of the Hours does not mean that we pray each section for the duration of an hour. We understand “hour” in another sense, in the way of pertaining to specific hours within our day which are consecrated to God and to Mary, set apart (which is what “holy” means) from our usual endeavors, not as 60 minutes each which few laymen and laywomen can afford, but as “the acceptable hour” in which some measure of time is given to God … Who Himself gives us all time, and even eternity.

Before opening your book pray to the Holy Spirit to guide you, to enlighten your understanding and to enkindle your heart with the WORD of God.

It is traditional (although optional) to pray a Hail Mary slowly in silence before the commencing of the Office thus focusing upon whom we are addressing.

It is also customary to pick up the Hours and kiss them, while slowly making the sign of the Cross, mindful of whom we are about to give our love and hearts to. Then we pray the following, (we mention this because it will not be indicated before every Hour in the Office. It it is presumed that you already know this since it is a standard practice in praying any Hour of the Office):
 

( to which, "Alleluia" is added, except during lent)

In this opening we are focusing on God, aware of our weakness, our fragmentation, our wandering minds and we want in our wills at least to praise God to the best of our ability, and so we ask for his assistance and grace, then given thanks to God, the Most Holy Trinity. We then proceed with the hour as usual.
 

The Praying of the "Hours",

The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The term, hour, as we said, does not indicate that each section of the Daily Office should take an hour to pray (although under the direction of the Holy Ghost this could be!) but that the word, the hour, relates to a specific time of the day. This division of prayer into hours has its roots in Divine worship as celebrated in the Jewish tradition of the synagogues, even before Christ.

In this edition of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the traditional Latin names are used for the hours. (Matins and Lauds are regarded as one hour, although in practice they are often prayed separately). As the Psalmist sings, "Seven times a day I praise you, O Lord !” So let us look at what are called the “Canonical Hours” that we will find in The Little Office. It will help you to understand that:
 

THE CANONICAL HOURS

• Matins: (from the Latin, matutinas vigilias, or “morning watches”) The hour of Matins was a nocturnal hour, it was celebrated at midnight onwards and often joined with Lauds as a continuing vigil of prayer. Within this is a great consolation, the realization that even now, in many parts of the world, midnight is the advent of the expectant new day... and "we do not know the hour when the Lord will come!"
   

• Lauds: (pronounced: lawds or loords) The word Lauds is derived from the Latin word laus meaning, praise. This is always an hour of praise, as is clear from the Psalms chosen within the text, which recall the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and the gift of new life that comes to us in this new God- given day.
   

• Prime: (pronounced: prime) (Latin: prima, first) was originally the earliest Canonical Hour, prima hora, and the first hour of the Roman day. Prime is celebrated at 6 AM, an hour in which we consecrate the forthcoming day to God, giving thanks for the awakening to life and being open to God’s gift of Himself through his Word.
   

• Terce: (pronounced: terse) (Latin: tertia hora) Called thus because the Romans celebrated it at what they regarded the third hour of their day, which was 9 AM in the morning. Terce is often called the golden hour, or the Hour of the Holy Ghost, recalling the hour when the disciples went up to the Temple to pray. It also commemorates the event at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended upon Mary and the Apostles at this hour. As did the Romans, we celebrate Terce at approximately 9 AM and it is, therefore, a prayer inspiring us to begin the day under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and in union with Mary Our Mother. “Come Holy Spirit!”
   

• Sext: (Latin, sexta hora) This was the sixth hour of the Roman day, what is for us about Midday. At midday the time we recall the hour that Christ was raised upon the Cross of Salvation for us, and Mary His faithful Mother standing faithfully by Him in His suffering. This is midday, and this hour can be regarded as an oasis of prayer, a time to turn to Our Savior and pray in union with Mary for the suffering of the world.
   

• None: (pronounced: known) (Latin, nona hora) This hour was regarded by the Romans as the ninth hour, hence the Latin name nona, which for us occurs about three o'clock in the afternoon. It was at the ninth hour, we will remember, that Jesus cried out in his agony, 'Eloi, Eloi, lamma sabacthani?' which means, 'My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me!” This is the hour of Crucifixion, the hour of Redemption, and in this hour we bring all our burdens to Christ on the Cross, praying for all poor sinners with and through Mary His Immaculate Mother.
   

• Vespers: (Latin, Vespers Espera ) was a name given to the evening star of Venus, which rising in the evening was a call to prayer, a light in the Heavens announcing the drawing on of the day, Vespers is prayed anytime after the Hour of None and before Compline.
   

• Compline: (pronounced: complin) From the Latin word (Latin, complere, or to complete) so named because it is the last hour of the day to be prayed. Compline is a beautiful way to complete our day, to pray with Mary and to Mary for the dying and for all those upon whom the night either of the spirit or in fact will soon fall. We pray for Gods protection for the night, conscious of the many evils perpetrated in the nocturnal hours. It is an hour in which we commend everything , surrender everything to God. How many times on our Christian journey we pray, “Holy Mary, Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death...”
  
   

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  This, hopefully, will give you a basic idea of when the hours are traditionally prayed, even while there is some flexibility within them. It may be that due to your commitments you are not able to pray all the hours. If this is the case, it is better to pray one or two with all your heart, rather than attempting all 8 hours every day in haste and anxiety. If you are not able to pray the entire Office, then ideally choose one Office or Canonical Hour at the beginning of your day and one to complete your day.

  Let us, then, begin.
  
  We will keep the following two Canonical Hours — Prime and Compline — for some time.* You do not have to go to different sections or pages in the book each day. This is part of the beauty and simplicity of the Little Office. You repeat the same prayers each day. This allows you to familiarize yourself with the Readings until they come to you naturally, even by memory! This is not "rote". It is immersion in prayer and in the ever unfolding depths revealed to you in each prayer. There is no rush! The world rushes you. God does not. Take the time to read and learn the Latin, side by side as well, and in this way praying as your forebears did for 100 generations in a beautiful and unbroken continuity. Latin has always been the unique and distinctive language of the Catholic Church. Everything written from the Seat of Peter in Rome is written in Latin. It's beauty is ever ancient and ever new.
  
   

Our deepest gratitude to the Poor Clare Colettine Nuns of the Ty Mam Duw Monastery in Harwarden, Wales, for their indispensible contribution and direction, apart from whom this series would be impossible.

The Holy Psalter:
All 150 Psalms Prayed (aloud) in Latin
 

A REFLECTION ON PRIME:

"FLESH OF MY FLESH" — MARY'S ROLE IN OUR SALVATION

“Who didst vouchsafe to choose the chaste chamber of the Blessed Virgin Mary to dwell therein”
 

Through the Incarnation, when Jesus Christ was conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the divine nature of the Son of God was united, and forever remains united, with the human nature of the Son of Man such that the one divine Person Jesus Christ, is indeed both "truly God and truly man".

The Unum Necessarium (the one thing necessary)

Mary is the one person ever to contribute, to truly give, the one thing to God that was not already His, even as He first imparted it to her. “The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof: the world, and all they that dwell therein.” (Psalm 24.1)

It was something necessary to the final and perfect fulfillment of the will of God. In fact, it was the one thing that God created but did not possess. Apart from it, the suffering, crucifixion, death, and resurrection — absolutely necessary to the fulfillment of God’s will for the salvation of the world, for the redemption of souls from bondage to sin and death — was impossible: her very flesh!  Mary assented to the will of God: “Et Verbum caro factum est”, "And the Word became flesh!"

Jesus Christ took the substance of His sacred humanity from Mary. It was in this Sacred Humanity that Christ preached, healed, raised from the dead, gave sight to the blind. It is also in His Sacred Humanity that Christ suffered, was crucified, and died for our sins and through which He purchased our salvation. Had Mary not consented to the will of God; had she refused to be the Mother of God's Son (Who Himself is One with the Father), the one thing absolutely necessary to our salvation — the flesh and the humanity which Jesus Christ assumed, and through which alone salvation came into the world in the Person of Jesus Christ — could never have been possible.

"God is a Spirit" (St. John 4.24), and spirit is not possessed of flesh together with all the limitations inherent within it. God is infinite. Flesh is not. God is everywhere present, flesh is not. God is perfect felicity, which is to say, God in Himself has ever been, is, and ever will be, perfectly happy, unassailed by suffering, and pain cannot touch upon Him — but flesh is not! For this reason, Saint Paul tells us that Jesus Christ, "Who being in the form of God ... emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men." (Philippians 2.5-7). How? Through the Incarnation. Through whom? Through Mary who contributed her flesh (giving Christ, Who had emptied Himself of "the form of God", the "form of a servant"; in fact the "Suffering Servant" of Isaiah 53 through Whom mankind was redeemed. Only in the humanity that Christ took from Mary alone, could He possibly suffer ... even die!
Theologians speak of this in terms of the "Hypostatic Union", or the union of God and Man in the Person Jesus Christ. Christ is both! But it was in His humanity that He suffered and redeemed the world — the humanity, the flesh, given Him by Mary alone. In her assent to the will of God, in her "Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum", "Be it done to me according to your word" (Saint Luke 1.38), she, the lowly "handmaid of the Lord",  gave to God the one thing that Spirit does not, cannot, possess: flesh. Her flesh — which the Son of God assumed, becoming through her assent, "True God and True Man."

This is beautifully expressed in The Little Office during this hour of Prime through the hymn, "Memento, rerum Conditor":

Mary’s role, then, in our salvation is not, as some contend, marginal; it is central and she can no more be understood apart from Christ than Jesus in His Sacred Humanity can be understood apart from Mary. His flesh is her flesh, and commingled with the flesh of no other! His humanity is, substantivally, Mary’s humanity… from whence it came and from which it is inseparable.

When Jesus gave Mary to us on the Cross, and us to Mary, He never ceased calling us to Him through her. Jesus Christ speaks to each of us in this way:

“… I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him: and I will not let him go, till I bring him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that bore me.” (Song of Songs 3.4)

It is to a loving acquaintance with Mary, His Mother, that Christ first calls you; to His Mother’s House, which is Holy Mother Church, and into that chamber of the love that bore Him, that you, too, may know the love of Mary ...and be no more an orphan in this world, nor a stranger in the world to come.

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* This does not mean that you cannot or should not pray the entire Office with all 8 Canonical Hours. If God gives you the time, and the inclination (it is His to give, not ours), you are encouraged to do so, although God recognizes that for most of the laity this is not possible with all their obligations to family life and work, which are intrinsic to their holy vocation as fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, the single and the providers for their families. This is your primary vocation. It is through this that God calls you to sanctity in your life. It is far more pleasing to God to attend to a crying or wayward child, an elderly parent, or a distressed spouse, that to utter all the prayers in the world as though you can multiply the grace God gives you through praying much and loving little. One Hour (not 60 minutes) of the Office, if this is all that is available to you, will give you all the grace that you need from God. Remember the Widow's Pence. ("And looking on, he saw the rich men cast their gifts into the treasury. And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in two brass mites. And he said: Verily I say to you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all: For all these have of their abundance cast into the offerings of God: but she of her want, hath cast in all the living that she had.") (St. Luke 21.1-3)

  Printable PDF File for the "Reflection on Prime"
 

A REFLECTION ON COMPLINE:
 
UNDERSTANDING THE ANGER OF GOD
 

At the beginning of Compline in the Office of The Blessed Virgin Mary we pray. "Convert thou us, O God our Saviour." (note the communal aspect; we are not just praying for ourselves, but for all Christians).

The response is:

"And turn away thine anger from us....."

In this prayer we acknowledge our own guilt and we pray also in the name of all sinners fearing punishment from God, Who in fact abundantly gives His grace and mercy to the truly penitent, however held fast in the sinister web of sin from which they struggle in vain to escape. Alone, they cannot. They know this. And God does, too. Acknowledging their guilt, as the Good Thief on the Cross they cry out, "Remember me when You come into Your Kingdom. Behold me, Lord, I am held fast by my sin. 'In justice I have been condemned', but in hope I yet cry out, Mercy, Lord, mercy! Do not turn
away from me. Save me!"

It is the prayer of the guilty. Are there none among us?

We join, then, our hearts to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Mother of Compassion and pray for grace, remembering that a sinner, one guilty — and not one just — was the first to enter the Kingdom. "My ways are not your ways", God has told us again and again.

 

Understanding God's Anger:

Compline, Anger, and God
 

What, then, are we to say of anger ... particularly God's anger? Is not anger one of the Seven Capital Sins? How can we, then, ascribe this to God Most Holy? We are perplexed by references to God's anger, most often dismissing them to the cultural peculiarities and obscure literal nuances of Jewish literature evident, most notably, in the Old Testament, where, we are told, God was simply misconstrued as a "God of wrath" — unlike His Son Who revealed Him in terms of love. But even in the Son we find, "the wrath of the Lamb"  (Apoc. 6.16) in the Book of the Apocalypse (the Book of Revelation). What, then, are we to make of this seeming contradiction between the God of Love that we have come to understand in Jesus Christ, and the God of wrath?  Is He the one, or the other? Is He both? Or is it the case that the notion of anger itself is an expression of love?

 Remember man, remember woman, that His ways are not your ways.

God is Love

To understand the passion of God's love, we must look carefully at our own. We are, after all, made in the image of God, and God is Love. What does love prompt in us? What does it motivate us toward?  Let us look deeply into our own love first before we attempt to understand the love of God, which, we are told repeatedly, is "a jealous love".

Who has not come to understand in a way that allows of no equivocation, the depth and intensity of the love of a spouse — once that love has been provoked to jealousy through being threatened by the competing love of another? In the face of this outrage, one begins to grasp the deep sense of ones value to the lover. Who has not experienced a profound and deeply humbling sense of irreplaceable worth, when the jealous love of a lover expresses itself in anger, both at the beloved and the one provoking the jealousy? A completely righteous anger is stirred in the lover who perceives the possible loss of the beloved to another ... especially to another who would mistreat, use, and value far less the beloved who, to the lover, is of unsurpassable worth. Who would see his wife wrenched from his absolute love and devotion, throw off her dignity as wife and mother, and become in the eyes of the world, and eventually in her own eyes, a mere courtesan through the passing and passionate whim, the lies and deceits, of another? Who could withhold his anger? Who would not strike out, not in punishment, but in pain? Would we characterize, even dismiss, such a hapless man, in this paroxysm of jealousy and indignation, as simply an innately angry individual with a penchant for punishment? This is the Book of Hosea. If you really want to understand the nature of God's love and the essence of what we misconstrue as His "anger", read the Book of Hosea. Is there a more poignant account of the love of God for His people than what we encounter in these pages?

Let us take another tack: what father, upon seeing his son innocently responding to the wanton and perverse solicitation of another man, would not scold the child in a rage as towering in height as the love that provoked it, and strike out at once and without compunction at the one seducing his son from his of innocence?

What father, loving a child, would reason thus: "Well, such things are acceptable in these evil days, and any expression of anger on my part would not be deemed "correct", and what is more, I am liable to infringe on the liberty of that man, however salacious (albeit, in a day long gone) his intentions are, and however harmful they will be to my son. I will then restrain myself, hold to correctitude, and say nothing and do nothing that would compromise my esteem in the community." Do we not say as much in our reproach to God's anger?

How incredibly blind we are to the love of God! We despise His anger as unworthy of a perfect God, instead of seeing the perfect love of God within it!

The Father in His righteous anger — which flows from and is motivated by love — unmistakably communicates to the child exactly where the line is drawn —- beyond which only evil lies; His anger conveys nothing of malice; to the contrary, it is an indication of His watchful care  — and above all else, His constant and ever vigilant love.

From the beginning — "anger" is first ascribed to God as early as Exodus 32.12 — man in his sinfulness and guilt invariably misunderstands, or better yet, misconstrues what he interprets as God's anger, likening it to his own which, more often than not, is unjust and proceeds from the sole desire to inflict punishment, not justly, to the end of correction that is motivated by love, the constructive love which seeks the good of the beloved — but gratuitously, as a pathological means to the satisfaction demanded by pride and exacted through fury, which is disordered anger, blind, and always destructive. There is a vital difference between the two. In fury, punishment is not motivated by love, and it is not expressed as a means to correction. It is not meted in a measure commensurable with the offense (and is therefore intrinsically unjust), and of itself seeks no coherent good — which is why it is understood as disordered. This is the unbridled anger of man, the anger that caused Cain to slay Able in the beginning. It is not the anger of God.

Who among us has not encountered a situation where gentle appeals to correction fall on deaf and unwilling ears? How often has God first said, "Come, let us reason", and that failing, resorted to the means alone through which correction would be motivated?

Even after 40 years in the desert, Israel remained "a stiff-necked people", just as we remain obdurate in our sins until some calamity befalls us that finally causes us to recognize that the way we have chosen — which was not God's way, and distinctly contrary to it — is precisely what brought calamity upon us ... and not God, Who relentlessly called us away from it. After how many appeals to a child not to touch a hot stove, does the child yet persist until, apart from our will, he has his way ... and to great sorrow? Who will call us to account? Only after he is afflicted does he see, understand, that our appeals were motivated not by malice, but by love, and that, after all, our wisdom exceeds his own? Sometimes, perhaps even often, affliction is the only way through which we begin to trust God — Who in all ways and in every place, seeks our good.

In our fallen state, even this too often fails. So Jesus Christ came to reveal his Father not as one eager to inflict punishment — but as LOVE. In Exodus we read, "God is a God of mercy, slow to anger and abounding in truth and love" (Exodus 34.6). And still Israel wandered in the desert for a generation.

In the 2nd letter of St. Peter, we are told, "He is patient with you, because he does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants all to turn away from their sins".

When the human heart is cleansed from sin, when a heart is pure it does not fear punishment — it knows God as love (1 John 4.18). It comes to know God as "Abba", as "Father" in the most meaningful and intimate way. It comes to understand that nothing proceeds from the hand of the Father but good, and precisely because it does not always comprehend, faith supplants understanding, and through that faith, trusts! The soul, that is to say, comes to a loving trust in God that it would never have acquired apart from that anvil of Righteous Anger... upon which it was forged by the love of God.

^*Further Helpful Suggestions with your, “Little Office”

V/ means Versicle: a versicle is the first half of one of a set of preces (the Latin plural of prex, "prayer") are prayers in liturgical worship that are short petitions, said or sung, and answered with a R/ response by the congregation or choir
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Prayers that may be said before each Office
 

Strictly speaking, the following prayers are not part of the Divine Office, but they are widely used by those who pray any Office , both as a preparation for prayer in the beginning and as a thanksgiving at the end. It is not always feasible to add additional prayers to our Office because of  time constraints, but when it is possible it is advisable, because the prayer of preparation enables us to focus upon what we are about to do, making us conscious of the fact that we need Gods help if we are to bring our poor wandering hearts and minds to worship. God can read us innermost thoughts, he knows our hearts and the proclamation of this prayer says to our God, "Lord you know I want to worship you, I want to give myself to you, despite the reality of how poor my response may be at times .God who sees the depths of all things knows, and he loves us.

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