![]() ![]() We earnestly exhort you, Venerable Brethren, to see that this pious practice is kept up, and that wherever it has ceased you restore it if possible. Still, it is greatly to be desired that they participate in reciting or chanting vespers sung in their own parish on feast days. The laity have no obligation in this matter. But this gradually ceased, and, as We have already said, their recitation at present is the duty only of the clergy and of religious. In an earlier age, these canonical prayers were attended by many of the faithful. According to the acts of the Apostles, the disciples of Jesus Christ all came together to pray at the third hour, when they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and before eating, the Prince of the Apostles went up to the higher parts of the house to pray, about the sixth hour Peter and John " went up into the Temple at the ninth hour of prayer" and at " midnight Paul and Silas praying. Other times of the day, as being more suitable for prayer are indicated in Sacred Scripture, in Hebrew customs or in keeping with the practice of every-day life. But soon in different parts of the Christian world the practice arose of setting aside special times for praying, as for example, the last hour of the day when evening set in and the lamps were lighted or the first, heralded, when the night was coming to an end, by the crowing of the cock and the rising of the morning star. Indeed, people prayed to God not only in groups but in private houses and occasionally with neighbors and friends. ![]() Public and common prayer offered to God by all at the same time was customary in antiquity only on certain days and at certain times. ![]()
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