Good Morning Digitial Neighbors! Happy Wednesday ADD Irregulars, WSN Diffusers, Friends & Refugees, Early Birds & Later Dayers, Conversants and Lurkers, Phamily & Misfits and all the rest of you Seekers & Wanderers at Locals.
Part of the personal prayer life of priest is the Liturgy of the Hours. The name is derived from praying at different times during the course of the day. It has its roots in ancient monasticism and even more ancient prayers of our Jewish ancestors in praying the Psalms and has spread through the life of the church over the course of the centuries. Depending on your community, some prayer all the hours, others prayer less.
As a Diocesan priest we make a promise at ordination to pray for and with the church. If we are not striving to be people of prayer, and people transformed by prayer, why bother with a calling to serve? Anyone can pray the Liturgy of the Hours and it was hopped that it would spread among the laity of the church, but that has as yet to be the case. It is not everyone's path to contemplation, unity and conversion. I do think one of the things a Seeker ought to ask themselves is how their prayer, contemplation, or mediation is leading to some sort of personal transformation as fruit of their searching, not so much the goal. The goal for all those who worship the God of Abraham is communion and union with the Divine, imperfect in this life because of our personal struggles, weaknesses and distractions on the path, and hopeful perfected communion in the next life.
Communion with any type of person, Divine or Human, I would even venture to say some animals, should change us. The purer the love, the more organic the change. The Lover wants to become more like the Beloved, the Lover wants to mirror in various aspects the Beloved without necessarily losing him or herself in the mystery and myth of the Beloved. I think there is always the danger of losing oneself in the myth of the Beloved and not ever discovering the reality of the Beloved but rather the idealized projection of what one is searching for in the Beloved. Infatuation gives us a brush with that experience, wonderful drug, poor preparation for a lifetime with the Beloved, but still a sweet memory.
Back to the Liturgy of the Hours - for fellow diocesan priest it breaks down this way:
Office of Readings - Psalms, sequential reading of scripture, ancient authors. This tends to be longest hour in terms of content. Mediation can make any hour longer if you find something to rest with in your prayers. The goal of prayer should never be its completion, if you are in a hurry to punch-card it as a check mark of "I did it" its efficacy is questionable. Punch-carding may be an infrequent & exceptional reality of your prayer, not a reoccurring reality if you are in an active relationship with the Luminous.
The rest of the hours follow a series of psalms, shorter readings & prayers
Morning Prayers - Lauds
Midday Prayer - There options here depending on the time of day
Evening Prayer - Vespers
Night Prayer - Compline
There are many apps to help fellow Seekers explore this form of prayer and meditation. Here is a link for the on-line prayer.
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
Padre - Tom Miller invites you to a Coffee Talk, Speakeasies, Schmoozes, Tea Times, Afterhours and other gatherings.
https://teams.live.com/meet/93792382189049?p=DiBHsYfuECPgDrG7vO
2026 Coffee Talk with the ADD Irregulars
Thursday, January 1, 2026
6:00 AM - 8:00 AM (CST)
Occurs every day starting 1/1 until 12/31/2027
Coffee Talk - Daily beginning at 6:00 AM Central Time Zone - USA
White Pilled Wednesday - A break from the heaviness of news and current events to focus upon things more personal & positive for the first hour of Coffee Talk.
Afternoon Chats - Most Tuesday, Friday & Sundays 2:00 PM Central
Other chats as posted in the community.
Happy Friday, Digital Neighbors!! Slept in a little this morning. Woke up at my ordinary time, hit the hour timer, and wandered back into short, incoherent dreamland. It was a good hour to try and get a little more rest after a long day yesterday. We had a good staff team-building day with personal prayer and then looking at the DISC tool as a way to appreciate our gifts as we work together for the good of our parish family.
Had a meeting in the evening to explore using our auditorium for an Emergency Overnight Shelter in the winter for the homeless and unhoused in our local area. Lots of potential, lots of work if that is to come to fruition. As I mentioned last night, this is where the rubber hits the road on personal charity. People feel comfortable giving money to support charities, but the possibility of hosting and staffing one is way out of the comfort zone for most. Prayer and time will tell.
Off to some “ifferisms” for your Friday cup of Joe.
If you get gloomy, just take an ...
The Beautiful
Said the Disciple to the Lover, “Sir, before I left the world I heard certain men who were held in high esteem and thought to know the will of the Beloved say that those who loved the Beautiful did not love the Beloved but loved idols, yet in the Garden of the Beloved we are ever striving to create beauty for the pleasure of the Beloved. Were they then speaking the truth?”
The Lover answered, “Those who said this had never glimpsed the form of the Beloved nor ever truly sought Him, for all beauty is but the reflection of the beauty of the Beloved, although seen very dimly as in a dark and faulty mirror, even as all goodness is a dim reflection of the goodness of the Beloved. So it is that those who love beauty and goodness recognize dimly in them the form of the Beloved and though often in ignorance those who are seeking the Beautiful and the Good are seeking after the Beloved.”
