Beschreibung:
<jats:p><jats:disp-quote><jats:p>By the venerable tradition of the universal Church, Lauds as morning prayer and Vespers as evening prayer are the two hinges on which the daily Office turns: hence they are to be considered as the chief hours and celebrated as such.</jats:p><jats:p>Lauds is designed and structured to sanctify the morning ... This Hour, recited as the light of a new day dawns, recalls the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, the true light enlightening every man.</jats:p><jats:p>Vespers is celebrated in the evening when the day is drawing to a close ... we join with the Eastern Churches and invoke ‘blessed Jesus Christ, the Light of our Heavenly Father’s sacred and eternal glory; as the sun sets we behold the evening light and sing to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit’.</jats:p></jats:disp-quote></jats:p><jats:p>These passages from the conciliar and post-conciliar documents of Vatican II make emphatically clear the Church’s tradition of prayer at the beginning and ending of the day, and connect this tradition with dawn, the rising light of the new day, and dusk, the waning light of the evening. In the Church’s tradition of prayer, these two Hours are given a Christological significance: Lauds recalls the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and Vespers commemorates his death and burial. This paper looks at the biological as well as the liturgical rhythms involved in praying at dawn and dusk, and invokes a sacramental understanding of time, which was common throughout earlier ages, but has been lost in more recent times. It then examines the custom of prayer at dawn and dusk in other religious traditions besides Christianity and collates all this evidence to ask if there is any justification for arguing that human beings are biologically programmed for such activity.</jats:p>