The Hours

About the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice.

The Ninth Hour opens the evening group of the daily cycle. It is appointed for the ninth hour of daylight — about three in the afternoon — when the Lord cried out and yielded up His spirit. The psalms speak of the courts of the Lord and of the turning of captivity.

O Gladsome Light of the holy glory of the Immortal Father.

Vespers begins the liturgical day. It blesses God who stretched out the heavens and made the evening, and it sings the ancient hymn Phos Hilaron — O Gladsome Light — as lamps are lit. The day of the Church starts not at midnight but at sundown.

Into Thy hands I commend my spirit.

Compline is the after-supper office, prayed before rest. Small Compline is the ordinary form: psalms of repentance, the Symbol of Faith, and the canon or akathist appointed. It asks God to grant a peaceful night and a Christian end.

God is with us. Understand, ye nations, and submit yourselves.

Great Compline is served in the Fast, on the eves of Nativity and Theophany, and at certain vigils. It is longer, penitential, and crowned by the hymn “God is with us.” Many parishes hear it in the first week of Lent.

Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this night without sin.

The evening prayers of the Prayer Book examine the day, ask forgiveness, and commend the soul to God before sleep. They are the companion of the morning prayers and the ordinary night rule of the laity, whether or not Compline is read.

Behold, the Bridegroom comes at midnight.

The Midnight Office keeps watch in the dark. It remembers the parable of the ten virgins and the hour when the Bridegroom comes. On Saturday it commemorates the departed; on Sunday it proclaims the Resurrection hymn “Behold, the Bridegroom comes at midnight.”

God is the Lord and hath appeared unto us.

Matins, called Orthros in Greek, is the longest office of the Horologion. It moves from the Six Psalms of the night toward the Great Doxology of morning light. On Sundays it is the service of the Resurrection; daily it asks that God give not only daylight but the light of Christ.

Early in the morning shalt Thou hear my voice.

The First Hour is read at the first hour of the day, about six in the morning, and is often joined to Matins. It remembers the Lord standing before Pilate at daybreak, and it asks that we may order our words in His fear as the day begins.

Having risen from sleep, we fall down before Thee, O Good One.

The morning prayers of the Orthodox Prayer Book are the ordinary rule of the laity: the Trisagion, the Symbol of Faith, the morning troparia, and the prayers of thanksgiving for having been raised from sleep. They may stand in place of, or beside, the Hours.

Create in me a clean heart, O God.

The Third Hour is the hour of Pentecost, when the Spirit came upon the Apostles, and of the Lord’s condemnation. Psalm 50 — “Have mercy on me, O God” — stands at its heart. It is often read before the Divine Liturgy.

And it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness.

At the sixth hour Christ was nailed to the Cross. The office remembers that hour and the darkness that covered the land. Psalm 90 — “He that dwelleth in the help of the Most High” — is appointed, a psalm of trust under the shadow of the Almighty.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me.

Typika, the Typical Psalms, is appointed when the Divine Liturgy is not served. It includes the typical psalms, the Beatitudes, the Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer — a reader’s office that still gathers the Church around the shape of the Liturgy.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

The Divine Liturgy is not one of the Hours, yet it is the heart of the daily cycle on days when it is appointed. The faithful receive the Body and Blood of Christ. For a prayer rule it is marked when one has been to church, or when it was served.