This is an adapted version of a presentation I gave in class on April 13, 2026
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I want you to imagine yourself in a world, a Roman world run by the forum bells, your day, your time, highly structured and organized. The bells signal the time for work to start. The bells signal the time for lunch. The bells signal the return to work at the end of the day loud and clear and these secular and ordinary rhythms come to serve as sacred markers. It’s at these times that you choose to pray. Regardless of where you are, you engage in a regular fixed practice of prayer. For the first few centuries of Christianity, this concept was not a thought experiment but reality.
See, the practice of fixed-hour prayer actually originates all the way back in early Judaism with the recitation of the Shema every morning and evening according to Deuteronomy 6:4-7.
The Psalmist even says that he prayed seven times a day (Psalm 119:164), and this practice was inherited and adopted by early Christians. In Acts, Peter and James heal a man on their way to the temple for fixed hour prayer (Acts 3:1). Peter is on the rooftop for fixed hour prayer when he sees the vision of the sheet (Acts 10:9).
This practice of fixed-hour prayer was seen by the early church fathers as a way to obey Paul’s command to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
Over the centuries, it has been known by many names. “Praying the hours”, “the daily office”, “the divine office”, “the divine hours” etc That language of “office” comes from Benedict, who described prayer as the “opus dei” which is translated “divine office” in the old English sense of “work”. Prayer is the work of God. For the sake of this project and presentation, I have used the term “fixed-hour” prayer as a way of catching all of these. But all of these names get back to one core idea, which is, that this is a practice of fixed-hour prayer throughout the day, which is structured around recurring times of worship, Scripture, and “psalmody”. It is a way of ordering our lives in such a way that we have regular interruptions that draw attention back to the reality that is the triune God and integrate that awareness into our life experience.
What I hope to show you is that Fixed-hour prayer is a historically continuous yet consistently adaptable Christian tradition that works to theologically structure time, transform attention through repeated liturgy, and aid spiritual directors and directees by externalizing prayer beyond subjective experience.
Bells Sound*
Oh, wait, there’s the bells. I guess before I tell you anymore about it, we’ll have to stop what we’re in the middle of and practice this because that’s how this works. When the bell sounds or the time comes, we pause whatever we’re doing and pray
So we’re gonna use a modern adaptation of fixed-hour prayer from Phyllis Tickle. This is actually how I was initially exposed to fixed-hour prayer, as my retreat partner incorporated this into my retreat and I have been using it ever since. Before each retreat, I will pull up the book for that season and find the morning, midday and evening prayers for the days of my retreat load in those days into my plan. We are going to pray together the morning prayer for the Monday closest to April 13th, which is to be prayed on the hour or half hour between 6-9am.
So let’s walk through this together. We are going to read each part together out loud. This is the specific prayer for the morning, but each of these aspects or titles is present for the midday and evening hours with different psalms. This practice was generally something that was done verbally, whether corporately or alone. Current research, like that published in the journal Psychological Science, says, “A growing body of research has revealed that labeling an emotion, or putting one’s feelings into words, can help to downregulate that affect”, and that is exactly what fixed-hour prayer and the reading of the Psalms can do for its participants. As we read this out loud, we have the opportunity to be helped as our emotions might be named for us as we verbalize it together. In practice, you would definitely slow this way down and leave room for silence, reflection, and meditation, but we’re mostly going to move through it for the sake of time. But let’s breathe for a second and enter a posture of prayer….
How was that for you? Any reflections?
Now that we have experienced it together, let me keep telling you about this sweet practice.
As the practice of fixed-hour prayer developed in early Christianity, it took on diverse forms. After the legalization of Christianity under Constantine, this practice exploded into the public arena with great diversity and with little conformity to standardization in terms of the content and format of the prayers themselves.
Then, with the rise of monasticism, this practice became a little more standardized (and by a little, I mean a little). Even with the significant role of St. Benedict and his rule upon western monasticism, there remained a great diversity and adaptability of this practice. There was diversity in which hours were practiced, what elements were incorporated, and so on.
This diversity remained a consistent aspect in my study of fixed-hour prayer. There was chapter after chapter laying out which elements were in each preserved version we have from every church father. And there were whole chapters dedicated to describing the differences between Eastern and Western fixed-hour prayer and between monastic and cathedral, which is to say for the lay person. In the monastery, the hours were independent of time and were intended to cultivate uninterrupted prayer, whereas the cathedral hours were developed in direct connection with the rising of the sun and the lighting of the evening lamps.
Our contemporary experience of fixed-hour prayer has been revitalized largely due to the Breviary of the Roman church in 1971 and through the Book of Common Prayer, which reformed fixed-hour prayer in the sixteenth century.
The two most ancient hours of prayer are the morning and evening prayers, whose origin, as has already been noted, can be traced back to the reciting of the Shema. The morning hour, which we just experienced together, is oriented around praise and the consecration of the day. Ours had a call to prayer, a request for presence, and of course the refrain, etc., oriented around those themes. The evening hour sees the close of the day through a lens of thanksgiving and repentance and accordingly thanks God for the day’s graces, asks for forgiveness for failures, and protection for the night and instead of a reading, Tickle and others will include a hymn. So even though it is very diverse in whatever form you encounter it the point is that it is highly structured, scripted, and repetitive.
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In addition to these two, there rose up at most six more hours of prayer which resulted in eight total times of prayer in Benedict’s time. There were seven during the day in accordance with Psalm 119:164 and one more at night according to Psalm 116:62. These daytime prayers were interruptions in the workday to pray through your work.
There are a few underlying assumptions or foundational concepts that are helpful to name in understanding this practice.
Time as a theological category
Fixed-hour prayer in whatever form it is practiced, imposes meaning onto time. What this practice does is to provide us with a sort of “Sanctification of time” or “liturgy of time.”
Taft describes it this way, “In the liturgical mystery, time becomes transformed into an event, an epiphany of the kingdom of God.” Ultimately, fixed-hour prayer transforms time from a neutral medium into a theological reality. As Reed and Osmer described it this week this helps to foster the conviction that God is present in all of life (p. 18).
Scripture-centered prayer
Post-reformation, there is a general aversion to pre-written prayers and a tendency to more spontaneous prayer. There is an admirable impulse there to have every word be meant but as Guiver points out, “It does, however, have its own pitfalls (excess individualism, piousness and dependence on feelings, leading, in their absence, to their fabrication) and [so it] needs the strong counterweight of formal, onward-moving liturgy…” This is what we see in the praying of the Shema, the praying of the Psalms by the New Testament believers, and even by Jesus throughout the gospels. The Psalms have always been the prayer book of God’s people and the Psalms have been and continue to be the “living core of the daily offices”. In fixed-hour prayer, the individual does not generate the content of prayer but instead submits to the scriptural framework which shapes their language and their perception of time.
Liturgy and Ritual
Fixed-hour prayer operates within the logic of liturgy in which repeated ritual actions make theological realities both present and formative. Taft says, “Liturgy is not just our response; it is also the eternally repeated call. It is both God’s unending saving activity and our prayerful response to it in faith and commitment throughout the ages.” (Taft, 341). Liturgy is a joining of our work and God’s work. We respond to His call and engage in remembrance that shapes our experience of the present.
So maybe you are thinking this sounds great but why should I think about this for directeees:
Fixed-hour prayer stabilizes our perception of our relationship with God and mitigates our fluctuating experience. Guiver says, “Daily disciplines of prayer, and especially the daily office, are important for us - contact is made with God and is seen to be made. They are ways of marking, incarnating, what can feel to be an elusive relationship with God.” (Guiver, 27). So for a directee who is struggling with their prayer life and connecting with God, this practice is a regular touch point. Not only that but a unique benefit of fixed-hour prayer is its repetitive nature, day after day, praying these different aspects over and over again. According to a 2025 peer-reviewed study, “repeated prayer triggers the dopaminergic reward system, potentially motivating individuals to continue this practice” (Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2025).
As I mentioned earlier, the verbalizing of emotions that the Psalms and fixed-hour prayer provide for us creates the possibility for powerful affect regulation. This is what Reed and Osmer mentioned when they said, “Naming and describing our experiences can enhance our interactions with God and others, and enrich our understanding of God’s work in the soul”. Not only that but a number of authors note how fixed-hour prayer has a way of cutting through the games we play in any communication and especially prayer, where we don’t say what we mean or we unconsciously try to manipulate or communicate in all of the nonverbal ways that we do.
On the other hand, the risk as with any spiritual practice is that it could become rote and empty the way Malachi 1 talks about the worship of Israel and how it would be better if they shut the doors of the temple. But I believe this concern should not keep any Christian from engaging regular spiritual rhythms but should instead serve as a warning to remain intentional. Another risk would be in applying this rigidly which goes against the very adaptable and diverse nature of this practice. Lastly, there is a risk that we would be content with merely repeating the words there rather than using them as a way of exploring our own complex experience as a launching pad.
As you think about what kind of directee this would be helpful with you might consider if they have a tendency to rigidity or legalism. On the other hand if you have a directee who is struggling to connect their secular work to their sacred calling, is drawn to liturgy, or needs help in expressing oneself in prayer, fixed-hour prayer would be a great aid in their spiritual development. One of the greatest implications of fixed-hour prayer is that it externalizes prayer so that rather than relying on the directee’s internal state, emotional readiness, or perceived ability to pray, there is a structure to open to God. Fixed-hour also relieves anxiety around “praying correctly”.
So in practice, the application of this is incredibly flexible and diverse. Outside of the direction room this could look like encouraging a directee to start their day with a psalm, a midday Lord’s Prayer, and ending the day with the prayer of examen. In the direction room, a director might begin a session by reading a Psalm, inviting a directee to pray a Psalm, the Lord’s Prayer, or the prayer of the Church together. In whatever case, the goal is that through this practice the directee might allow prayer to saturate their day, consecrating ordinary moments, and beginning to let their time, affect, and attention be transformed through the externalization of their prayers.
My hope is that I have shown how: Fixed-hour prayer is a historically continuous yet consistently adaptable Christian tradition that works to theologically structure time, transform attention through repeated liturgy, and aids spiritual directors and directees by externalizing prayer beyond subjective experience.
As part of this research project, I wrote a 15-page research paper, which I will eventually share and attach below.
Works Cited:
The Book of Common Prayer. Accessed April 9, 2026.
https://www.bookofcommonprayer.net
Benedict of Nursia. The Rule of St. Benedict. Edited by Timothy Fry. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1982.
Bradshaw, Paul F. Daily Prayer in the Early Church: A Study of the Origin and Early Development of the Divine Office. London: SPCK, 1981.
Carvour, H. M., A. K. Radke, and N. S. French. “A Review of the Neuroscience of Religion: An Overview of the Field, Its Limitations, and Future Interventions.” Frontiers in Neuroscience 19 (2025): 1587794. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2025.1587794.
Guiver, George. Company of Voices: Daily Prayer and the People of God. Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1988.
Jones, Cheslyn, Geoffrey Wainwright, Edward Yarnold, and Paul Bradshaw, eds. The Study of Liturgy. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Kircanski, Katharina, Matthew D. Lieberman, and Michelle G. Craske. “Feelings into Words: Contributions of Language to Exposure Therapy.” Psychological Science 23, no. 10 (2012): 1086–1091. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612443830.
Stewart, Columba. Prayer and Community: The Benedictine Tradition. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998.
Taft, Robert F. The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West: The Origins of the Divine Office and Its Meaning for Today. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1986.
Tickle, Phyllis. The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime. New York: Doubleday, 2000.
Tickle, Phyllis. The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime. New York: Doubleday, 2001.
White, James F. Introduction to Christian Worship. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990.
