Questo articolo è disponibile anche in:
Italian 
English 
Spanish
Question
Hello Father,
For some time I have decided, in order to pray daily, to follow the liturgy of the hours in a reduced form: morning lauds, vespers and compline.
Sometimes, for example when I go out for dinner, I come home very late in the evening and recite vespers and compline when I go to bed.
Considering that vespers should be recited around sunset or before dinner, does it make sense to pray them so late? Should I perhaps, in this specific case (also because if I come back late I am often tired and listless), only recite the prayers provided for compline?
What do you recommend?
Thanks in advance, a fraternal hug and praise be to Jesus Christ.
Best regards
Answer of the priest
Dear friend,
1. I am happy for your beautiful determination in the spiritual life.
It is a grace that the Lord inspired you and that you, always by his grace, accepted.
2. Although you are not ex officio required to pray with the Liturgy of the Hours as are priests and consecrated persons, if you find yourself late in celebrating Vespers, rather than skipping them, I advise you to recite them late.
The whole Church always receives great benefit from that prayer, even if it is not done at the exact time.
3. In addition, you can connect spiritually with those who at that hour somewhere in the world are reciting vespers and giving thanks on behalf of the whole church for the blessings received during the day. Think, for example, of the preciousness of the canticle of thanksgiving of the Magnificat.
4. The will to never neglect them becomes beneficial for another reason as well, since it often happens to have some mishap precisely at the moment when we usually recite vespers.
So, instead of postponing them, it is better to anticipate them. In this way we are spiritually refreshed, we help the Church and we have one less thing to think about on the days we are late.
5. I take this opportunity to recall what the holy Pope John XXIII said about the Breviary, now called the Liturgy of the Hours.
In the exhortation “Sacrae Laudis” of January 6, 1962, speaking of this prayer, he said that “it brings a heart-filling joy” and that (he who recites it) “enjoys a soothing peace as if he were already admitted to that heavenly blessedness reserved for him in the Assembly of the Saints”.
He also said that it is “the great divine poem offered for the song of humanity, redeemed by Jesus Christ” and that “the devout turning of the pages of this poem is joy for the mind; a daily teaching for life; relief and comfort among the difficulties and weariness of human vicissitudes and temptations and a reconfirmed certainty of future joys”.
“It is a great joy (…) to feel, when reciting the Divine Office, as though raised up tenderly in that atmosphere of catholicity, that is, of universality which breathes from its pages, where everything shines and sings. (…) The daily Breviary (is) an inexhausted and inexhaustible source of light and grace”.
6. Finally he recalled that this prayer unites us to the liturgy that is being celebrated in heaven at that moment.
And after having mentioned what we read in a passage from the Apocalypse: “Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a gold censer. He was given a great quantity of incense to offer, along with the prayers of all the holy ones, on the gold altar that was before the throne. The smoke of the incense along with the prayers of the holy ones went up before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with burning coals from the altar, and hurled it down to the earth” (Rev 8,3-5), he wanted to remind that the censer filled with burning coals and hurled down to the earth is “a moving image of the influence which the prayers of the saints, which are those of the Church, have (had) through the goodness and mercy of God on the course of events and of human history“.
As we can see, what is done by praying with vespers is a very great good, even if done late.
Urging you to always persevere in this way, I assure you of my prayers and I bless you.
Father Angelo
Translated by Chiara P.
