This semester was not my first foray into praying the liturgy of the hours.  Over the past seven years or so, since I was introduced to the Hours by a housemate, I have prayed them sporadically.   This semester I took two approaches to daily prayer.  For the three weeks, I prayed out of the daily prayer periodical Give Us This Day.  It was a challenge to discipline myself to put aside time in the morning and evening, but I enjoyed the accessibility of this prayer booklet and the contemporary / social justice focused commentaries.  At the end of the month, when I had prayed through the periodical with prayers based on the liturgy of the hours, I decided to switch to using the divine office web resources.  The Universalis website was easy to use and I could link to it from my Laudate prayer app on my tablet computer.  The language of the prayers were drawn from a different translation than I have been accustomed to using, so after two or three weeks, I switched to the www.divineoffice.org.  This website was a bit distracting with the adds, but on a few occasions I was able to listen to the hours read to me as I drove or performed evening chores.  I appreciated being able to pray the Magnificat and Benedictus in more familiar language, since I have not yet managed to memorize them.  

            Unfortunately around the end of February, my commitment flagged significantly.  I went from praying at least once, if not twice a day, to only a few times a week.  I had tried to pray more than I could commit to over a longer period of time.   At the same time I got busy with work, kids got sick, and I began to feel less accountable to pray in solidarity with others.  Missing prayer for several days was discouraging and it became hard to start back up again using the website.  Had I spent money on an app, where I could pray without the internet, or sprung for a monthly subscription to Give Us This Day or Magnificat, of which I have copious back issues, I believe I would have felt a greater obligation to keep up with the daily prayer.  As it stands, over the past two months, I have managed to recollect most evenings with an examination of conscience and have occasionally returned to the evening prayer online.  Quite predictably I have also lost the sense of attentiveness to Creation and Creator that I had cultivated over the preceding two months.  Over the period where I prayed regularly, I can say that I can became more sensitive to the presence of the Spirit on a daily basis, while over the past two months it has
            I would definitely like to resume regular daily in the form of the hours or another similar format.  I had never thought of it as a public form of prayer before, but it is neat to feel in solidarity with the broader church in my “personal” prayer.  But I wonder if being in solidarity with an immediate, personal community would not provide even a stronger sense of responsibility.  I am resolved to recommence this discipline at a moderate, hopefully sustainable rate.  Over the long haul, I am certain that daily meditation is one of the marks of the mature spirituality of the saints and mystics.