5 Mistakes to Avoid When Praying the Liturgy of the Hours

Timeless and treasured, it’s been around even longer than the Catholic Church has. The Liturgy of the Hours is the Church’s official prayer. Catholics are discovering it and joining this established prayer all the time!

Like with many Catholic practices, there are things to learn and master about the Liturgy of the Hours. These five points are essential and distinctive to the Liturgy of the Hours, but they can also be easy to overlook or get wrong. If any of these hit home for you, don’t worry. Read on to deepen your understanding of a beloved tradition of the Church!

#1: Rushing Through It 

Prayer is contemplation, not a checklist or a chore. The Liturgy of the Hours calls us to slow down and sanctify time: that’s an intentional part of the order of the prayers and the structure of the hours. 

In particular, don’t skip the silences. Moments of reflection are built into certain parts of the Liturgy of the Hours, so you can examine your conscience or call to mind personal intentions. Of course, it’s better to pray with the limited time you have than not at all, even if it means praying quickly. If this is usually the case for you, make an intentional effort to slow down every once in a while. 

#2: Treating Liturgy of the Hours as a Purely Individual Prayer

Alone when you pray? Well, as a Catholic, you’re not actually isolated. If you’re praying the Liturgy of the Hours by yourself most of the time, it can be easy to forget the bigger picture: you’re praying alongside the Pope, bishops, priests, missionaries, monks in hermitages, sisters in convents, students in college chapels, and busy parents. The Liturgy of the Hours is never just an individual prayer: your souls are in rhythm across time and throughout the world. If you usually pray the Liturgy of the Hours entirely alone, look for ways to experience it communally. Invite your spouse, children, close friends, or some fellow parishioners to pray with you. 

#3: Ignoring the Meaning of the Psalms

There are 1-3 psalms in each “hour” of the Divine Office, and they’re not just filler. The Psalms are central to the rotation of prayers in the Liturgy of the Hours. The lineup rotates every four weeks, aligning with the seasons of the liturgical year and important feast days. 

It’s easy to tune out with things that we know well, and familiarity can make something valuable fade in our eyes. Recognizing psalms from Sunday school, worship music, or the Mass readings can cause us to recite them mechanically. Yet the psalms in the Liturgy of the Hours touch on many important themes: trust, repentance, hope, faith, praise, refuge in God, and more. Even when their meanings do not fit your mood, remember to internalize what you’re praying and engage with their meaning and emotion. 

#4: Overloading too quickly

Enthusiasm for a prayer routine is a wonderful thing! Yet for some people, praying all of the Liturgy of the Hours can become too much, too fast. Scripture talks about praising God seven times a day (see Psalm 119:164), but it’s often better to start small and build rather than jumping into all seven. Stacking the hours that you miss becomes overwhelming and defeats the purpose of praying them at their designated times to sanctify various hours of the day. Start with one or two of the times of prayer –– Morning, Evening, or Night Prayer are best for this –– and go all-in with those. In the spiritual life, quality over quantity counts.

#5: Treating It Like Just Another Devotion Instead of the Prayer of the Church

The Liturgy of the Hours isn’t just one prayer option among many--it’s the official, public prayer of the Church. When you pray it, you’re stepping into something much bigger than your personal devotion: you’re participating in the Church’s unceasing prayer to God.

Because of that, it’s different from something like the Rosary or a novena. It follows a structure, a rhythm, and a connection to the liturgical calendar that’s meant to unite the whole Church across time and place.

When we treat it like just another private devotion, we can miss what makes it so powerful. Instead, approach it with the awareness that you’re praying with the Church, all lifting up the same psalms and prayers together.

Be sure to join Ascension’s waitlist to be the first to know when the beautiful new collection of the Second Edition of the Liturgy of the Hours is available for preorder! 

What’s helped you to enter into the Liturgy of the Hours and establish good rhythms for praying it? Let us know in the comments!