Prayers for Your Beloved Departed

Today I have prayed and will pray for all of your faithfully departed loved ones today through my Morning Offering prayer and the Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office).

You may know that your pastor/deacon has the obligation to pray the Office for the good of the Church everyday, and I as a seminarian try to emulate this practice though I am not require to do so. The portion of the Office that he is praying today is the Office for the Dead, which is the part that the Church has dedicated to draw attention the departed and offer prayers for them. This part is often prayed when someone dies and on All Souls Day. I bring this up to let you know that your priests and deacons are praying these special prayers for all of your loved ones personally today. And know that I am doing the same as well.

Just a gentle note for you as you remember today.

And you can join in with them this day and everyday by praying the Office as well if you have a set of the Hours or one of the shorter “Christian Prayer” editions. There is a learning curve, so I recommend the iBreviary app (http://www.ibreviary.org/en/) because it lays out each day in order for you if you’ve never prayer it or never got the hang of it (it was hard for me at first as well!) The traditional “hinge hours” of Morning and Evening prayers are a great start. The Hours are the official prayer of the Church and are meant to sanctify the whole day by little moments of prayer throughout. Perhaps, a lot of people may not know this, but Vatican II called for all members of the Church to take up and pray this universal set of prayers for her good. So even though laity are not required to pray them, just imagine the healing and strengthening the Church could enjoy if everyone did!