2.3.2- Liturgy of the Hours and mystery of time

The Liturgy of the Hours is to be thought of and celebrated in exactly this vision, a prayer which is the pulsating heart of the believer’s day, in some way it marks its rhythm in orderly fashion and structures time, making it a lived experience. In fact, it can reveal the mystery of time in Christian life, ²⁰ and reveals that at the center of time is the Paschal Mystery: “Christian prayer is born, nourished and developed around the faith event par excellence, the Paschal Mystery of Christ. Thus, in the morning and in the evening, at the rising and setting of the sun, we remember Easter, the passage of the Lord from death to life.” ²¹

It is not simple oration, but rather ritual prayer that religious do in the name of the entire Church, not for private interests. It is supplication that is united to the perennial praise of the Son toward his Father, but which at the same time expresses, with the words of the psalmist, the words and drama of all men and women, in every time of history, in any circumstance and context. One who prays with this spirit lets himself be accompanied in life’s events by the Spirit of the Father who enlightens the eyes of the mind and heart, and accompanies the happenings that many brothers and sisters undergo, presenting them to the Father.

To pray like this is to go daily to the school of the Word, to let the Word accompany life and be the horizon of all human words and actions, so that life can become ever more its place of resonance.