Seven Sacred Pauses, Praying the Hours
Macrina Wiederkehr’s wonderful book, Seven Sacred Pauses, is an invitation to learn, and practice, the ancient spiritual discipline of praying the hours. The pastoral charge undertook the reading through of this book in a small group format in the early part of 2020. We were required to end our gatherings via zoom as the Cov-id 19 pandemic arrived.
Here are some words from Macrina’s introduction to her wonderful, welcoming practice. Though Macrina is part of the Benedictine order, she offers this practice as a unifying place for all faith traditions, and those with no formal faith at all. She sees it as a place for all of us to live out our fullest lives.
And, there follows, a sample chapter of the book for listening. If you are desirous of deepening your spiritual life, this wonderful book is a good place to begin. It requires only that you are willing to pause during the day, on a schedule that is suitable to your life.
Living in harmony with the hours requires faithful practice in the art of mindfulness. . . Living mindfully is the art of living awake and ready to embrace the gift of the present moment. When I pray the gospels, it is crystal clear that Jesus had a rhythm of prayer in his life. He lived mindfully. We see him withdrawing from the apostles and from his crowds of followers. He takes time for solitude at critical moments in his life. He goes away at significant times of the day - dawn, for example. Sometimes he spends the whole night in prayer. He seeks out lonely place where he can be silent and in communion with God. Often he slips away at crucial times of strife or moments when decisions need to be made, yet he always returns to his ministry of compassion and love among the people.
After Jesus’ death and resurrection we see his disciples attempting to honour the same in born need to pause in the prayerful remembrance at specific hours of the day. The Catholic monastic hours grew out of the spirit of the early Christian households of faith, which continued to meet in the temple for prayer and celebrate the breaking of bread in their homes (Acts 2: 42 - 47) These hours have been revised and expanded in many ways and have, in the course of history, been known by various names: the canonical hours, the Divine Office, The Prayer of the Hours, the Divine Hours, The Liturgy of the Hours.
Macrina Wiederkehr, Seven Sacred Pauses, pg. 3, 4
“No matter what faith tradition we follow, we are pilgrims together on each day’s journey. We all have to get up in the morning and move through the day with as much grace as we can gather. Why not make this pilgrimage through the day with a heart for one another, pausing throughout the day whether this be for two, five, or ten minutes?”