Description
Note: This prayer book is a hardcover edition, and its fulfillment shall take longer than paperback alternatives (between two to four weeks), so your patience it appreciated.
I arranged the Office of Compassion, and revised and expanded it, over a number of years until it became what it is today: a focused lectio divina on the central realities of our faith, on the revelation of God’s love in Christ through the Holy Spirit and our call to filial and nuptial intimacy with the Trinity. It is set up in the format of the liturgy of the hours and yet is a wholly private devotion, born of the desire to extend and deepen (or be an alternative to, if appropriate) the praying of the official Liturgy of the Hours and especially to provide a kind of “Scriptural template” or “collage” for abiding contemplation and remaining always with one’s gaze upon Jesus Christ who reveals the face of the Father.
Thus the rubrics for this and the official Liturgy of the Hours are the same. Either some or all of the hours can be prayed, and in any way that one desires, since the design of this prayer book, inspired by the devotional offices such as the “Little Office of our Lady,” is solely intended to deepen one’s own experience of prayer and one’s childlike awareness of God’s presence throughout the day.
A note on the structure of the days, in order to aid on comprehension. The week is arranged to facilitate a deeper penetration of the mystery of God’s love, of the intimacy of the Trinity as the center of revelation and of the whole of human history, and as our deepest vocation and destiny. In this light it is also aimed to ever renew and deepen personal participation in the divine compassion that is expressed in the Paschal Mystery, and through this Mystery, to lead back into the gratuity of the Trinity anew. The two primary ways in which this is done are 1) through recurring reflection on the great events of our salvation, especially the “Holy Triduum” of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus, and 2) through “accompanying” those who experienced a special closeness to the Lord, especially along the way of his Cross and his journey to his glorious Resurrection and Ascension.
There is a one week Psalter with sets of Psalms and Canticles for every one of the times of prayer that are also present in the Liturgy of the Hours, and a four week cycle of Biblical readings, responsories, and prayers.
