Divine Office | Prayer is the light of the soul – My Daily Bread: A Reason2bCatholic blog

monk-in-white-seated-reading-camille-corot — Monk in White, Seated, Reading by Camille Corot (c. 1857)

Don’t neglect your spiritual reading. Reading has made many saints.”

St. Josemaría Escrivá

Prayer is the light of the soul

From an ancient Easter homily by Pseudo-Chrysostom

Saint John Chrysostom (349 – 407) was elected Patriarch of Constantinople in 397. His sermons and writings did much to explain the Catholic faith and to encourage the living of the Christian life, and his eloquence earned him the surname “Chrysostom” (the Greek for “golden mouth”).

The highest good is prayer and conversation with God, because it means that we are in God’s company and in union with him. When light enters our bodily eyes our eyesight is sharpened; when a soul is intent on God, God’s inextinguishable light shines into it and makes it bright and clear. I am talking, of course, of prayer that comes from the heart and not from routine: not the prayer that is assigned to particular days or particular moments in time, but the prayer that happens continuously by day and by night.

Indeed the soul should not only turn to God at times of explicit prayer. Whatever we are engaged in, whether it is care for the poor, or some other duty, or some act of generosity, we should remember God and long for God. The love of God will be as salt is to food, making our actions into a perfect dish to set before the Lord of all things. Then it is right that we should receive the fruits of our labours, overflowing onto us through all eternity, if we have been offering them to him throughout our lives.

Prayer is the light of the soul, true knowledge of God, a mediator between God and men. Prayer lifts the soul into the heavens where it hugs God in an indescribable embrace. The soul seeks the milk of God like a baby crying for the breast. It fulfils its own vows and receives in exchange gifts better than anything that can be seen or imagined.

Prayer is a go-between linking us to God. It gives joy to the soul and calms its emotions. I warn you, though: do not imagine that prayer is simply words. Prayer is the desire for God, an indescribable devotion, not given by man but brought about by God’s grace. As St Paul says: For when we cannot choose words in order to pray properly, the Spirit himself intercedes on our behalf in a way that could never be put into words.

If God gives to someone the gift of such prayer, it is a gift of imperishable riches, a heavenly food that satisfies the spirit. Whoever tastes that food catches fire and his soul burns for ever with desire for the Lord.

To begin on this path, start by adorning your house with modesty and humility. Make it shine brightly with the light of justice. Decorate it with the gold leaf of good works, with the jewels of faithfulness and greatness of heart. Finally, to make the house perfect, raise a gable above it all, a gable of prayer. Thus you will have prepared a pure and sparkling house for the Lord. Receive the Lord into this royal and splendid dwelling — in other words: receive, by his grace, his image into the temple of your soul.

Credit: Divine Office: Office of Readings; February 19, 2021; https://divineoffice.org/welcome/

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Fasting is food for the soul.”

Saint John Chrysostom

Byzantine Holy Icon, St. John Chrysostom. This icon is a reproduction from the authentic icon painted by the monks in the Cell of St. John the Theologian Holy Monastery of Koutloumousiou in Mount Athos, Greece. Credit: Athonite; https://www.athoniteusa.com/pages/about-us

The Holy Scriptures were not given to us that we should enclose them in books, but that we should engrave them upon our hearts.”

Saint John Chrysostom



“From ancient times the Church has had the custom of celebrating each day the liturgy of the hours. In this way the Church fulfills the Lord’s precept to pray without ceasing, at once offering its praise to God the Father and interceding for the salvation of the world.” — Office of the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship.

The Liturgy of the Hours is the prayer of the whole People of God. In it, Christ himself “continues his priestly work through his Church.” His members participate according to their own place in the Church and the circumstances of their lives. The laity, too, are encouraged to recite the divine office either with the priests, among themselves, or individually.

The celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours demands not only harmonizing the voice with the praying heart, but also a deeper “understanding of the liturgy and of the Bible, especially of the Psalms.”

The hymns and litanies of the Liturgy of the Hours integrate the prayer of the psalms into the age of the Church, expressing the symbolism of the time of day, the liturgical season, or the feast being celebrated.

Credit: https://divineoffice.org/liturgy-of-the-hours/