St. Benedict calls the disciple to the school of the Gospel: “Let us walk in the paths of the Lord by the guidance of the Gospel” (R Prol). By these words the Father of monks expresses his intention to estab­lish a life patterned after the Gospel. This is the only true foundation on which a community rests. St. Benedict was well aware that his work represented an embodiment of the Gospel.  St.  Benedict called the praying of the Traditional Benedictine Monastic Breviary the “OPUS DEI”, which is Latin for “WORK OF GOD.” 

THE DAILY MASS AND THE DAILY PRAYING OF SCRIPTURE

        FROM THE TRADITIONAL BREVIARY ARE THE HEART OF TRUE

       BENEDICTINE MONASTICISM AND THE TWIN PILLARS UPON

WHICH REST OUR HOPE FOR SALVATION

    Our Lord assured his disciples that he had come, not to destroy, but to fulfil,

the Law. It is not surprising, therefore, to find the earliest Christians,

notably the Apostles, conforming to the traditional customs of worship of

the old Covenant: keeping the Passover, or going up to the Temple to pray

at the appointed "Hours of Prayer," or keeping those hours as times of private devotion.

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    Likewise, we find St. Paul, wherever he might be, seeking out the

    local synagogue on the Sabbath, taking part in its worship and

    availing himself of its opportunities for teaching. At the same time

    we find Christians keeping strictly Christian observances, notably

    the First Day of the Week, with its Eucharistic Breaking of Bread as

    the distinctive act of worship. Even when the Church had overflowed

    the bounds of Judaism and was overwhelmingly Gentile in its

    membership, there was a survival of devotional practices of Jewish

    origin. Chief among these was the observance of the "Hours of

    Prayer," as services supplemental to the central Eucharistic Rite.

    Tertullian, among others, is witness that this survival was not

    confined to the Christian communities of Palestine. The observance

    of the Hours was at first a matter of private devotion in Gentile

    communities, as it continued to be in Rome until a comparatively

    late period. But with the rise of asceticism, we find outside of

    Rome the practice of saying the Hours becoming customary in the

    public assemblies for worship, where it met and coalesced with two

    other non-eucharistic services, the Vigil preceding Sundays and

    great festivals, and the daily “Lucernarium”, or lamp-lighting

    service, held at night-fall. The material of these services was

    drawn from the worship of the synagogue and the structure of the

    Vigil modeled loosely after its pattern. There was psalmody, the

    reading of other parts of Scripture, and prayer. It is in the union

    of these two streams of common worship, the monastic, semi-private

    services of the Hours, and the public Vigil and its prelude, the

    Lucernarium, that we find the original form of what has long been

    known in the Church as The Divine Office. The Liturgy proper, the

    Mass, held its position of supremacy unchallenged and unrivalled.

    But contemporary writers bear witness to the fact that in the East,

    in the Fourth Century, the laity, secular and monastic, as well as

    the clergy, attended these supplemental services in great numbers.

    That there should be need of regulation was inevitable. By the time

    such regulation appeared (in the Fourth Century) the fusion of the

    secular and monastic elements of the Office had become general, and

    perhaps we may attribute the enactment of legislation on the subject

    to the cooling of the zeal of not only the secular laity, but of the

    clergy as well, in the matter of regular and systematic attendance

    at the offices. Thus we find in The Apostolic Constitutions

    directions that clergy and laity shall "make prayers early in the

    morning, and at the Third, Sixth, and Ninth Hour, at eventide, and

    at cock-crow." There is an additional enactment that, if assembly

    for service cannot take place in church (on account of persecution,

    or similar grave cause), the Bishop shall assemble his flock in some

    private house; but if this is impossible, each one shall discharge

    this duty either alone, or with one or more of his brethren. (Apost.

    Const. VIII, xxxiv. Patr. Graec. I, 1135.) In the same century,

    the Council of Laodicea (A. D. 387) echoes these directions.

    The obligation to pray at set hours, originally binding on the faithful,

     is typified in the Monastic Diurnal, a much shortened form of the Breviary

     prayed by Priest.  See:  http://www.celticorthodoxchurch.com/oblate.html

     While the obligation for the faithful to pray at set hours is no longer binding,

     the practice remains popular among Oblate Benedictine and among members

     of various Third Orders associated with a Monastic Community. 

     The obligation to pray the full Breviary remains binding on all ordained to

      Holy Orders. 

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IF BY THE GRACE OF GOD I AM ALLOWED TO ENTER

HEAVEN AFTER MY DEATH, IT WILL BE BECAUSE I AM A

FAITHFUL PRIEST WHO DAILY FAITHFULLY PRAYED

THE FULL DIVINE OFFICE OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH

(Father Bernardine Kangley, O.Carm

Born March 8, 1919 – Died to the world but born anew

in heaven on August 2^nd, 1993)