Pray Without Ceasing
Five times each day our brothers pause, turn toward God, and pray the ancient hours of the Divine Office. These are not interruptions to the day — they are the skeleton of it. We invite you to pray with us, wherever you are.
The Church’s oldest daily prayer
The Divine Office — also called the Liturgy of the Hours — is the official daily prayer of the Church, rooted in a practice as old as the Psalms themselves. Long before the Mass existed in its current form, Christians gathered at fixed hours of the day to pray together, consecrating the hours of each day to God.
By the time of St. Benedict in the sixth century, these hours had taken their settled shape. St. Francis inherited and deepened this tradition, weaving it into the very fabric of Franciscan life. For us, the Office is not an obligation we fulfill — it is the rhythm we live inside. Through it, the entire day becomes a prayer.
“Seven times a day I praise you, and at midnight I rise to give you thanks.”
— Psalm 119:164
We pray five canonical hours each day. Each Hour includes psalms, a short scripture reading, and closing prayer — the same words prayed by monks and friars across centuries. When you pray with us, you join a voice that has never fallen silent.
Five times of prayer each day
These are the hours observed each day at Saint Kateri Tekakwitha Friary. You are welcome to pray with us in spirit at any or all of them.
Sanctifying time itself
The world measures time in productivity. The Office measures time in prayer. To pray the hours is to resist the tyranny of urgency and say, with your body and your voice, that God is more important than whatever else is happening. For friars who work delivery routes and wash dishes alongside the poor, this rhythm is not a luxury — it is what makes everything else make sense.
When we pray at Matins, Terce, Sext, None, and Vespers, we are not performing a ritual in isolation. We are joining a voice that spans continents and centuries — monks in Egypt, nuns in Poland, friars in El Paso — all praying the same psalms, the same words, to the same God. The Office is the Church breathing.
Rooted in the Psalms
The heart of every Hour is the Psalter. Over the course of the week, the brothers pray through the psalms — words that span the full range of human experience, from praise to lament, from wonder to desolation. These were the prayers of Jesus himself.
Open to All
The Office belongs to the whole Church — not only to clergy and religious. You need no special book, no training, no membership. You need only a willing heart and a moment of silence. Pray with us wherever you are.
Unbroken for Centuries
In one form or another, Christians have prayed these hours without interruption since the earliest centuries of the Church. When you join us, you are not starting something new. You are stepping into something very old.
Prayer for El Paso
At each Hour, we carry specific intentions to God — for the poor and the forgotten of El Paso, for the indigenous peoples of the Southwest, for the sick, the dying, and all who have asked for our prayers. Nothing is too small to bring to the altar.
The Jesus Prayer: a minimum, not a shortcut
Life does not always permit the full celebration of the Divine Office. A delivery shift, an illness, a family emergency — there are moments when the Hour arrives and the Office simply cannot be prayed. For those moments, the Orthodox tradition has long offered the Jesus Prayer as a substitute practice: a way of honoring the Hour without abandoning it.
The Jesus Prayer is the ancient prayer of the heart, drawn directly from Scripture — the cry of the blind man at Jericho, the plea of the publican in the temple, and the name above all names:
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
This prayer is prayed repeatedly, ideally with a prayer rope, in stillness and recollection. It is not a mantra. It is not a technique. It is an address to a Person — and it requires the same attention, humility, and intentionality as the Office itself.
The Jesus Prayer is a floor, not a ceiling. The repetition counts below are the minimum prescribed for each Hour when the Office genuinely cannot be prayed. They are not an easier alternative for those who simply prefer not to spend forty-five minutes at Vespers. If you are able to pray the Office, you must pray the Office. If you are not, these counts keep the Hour holy until you can return.
Total: 99 repetitions daily — the number of the sheep the Good Shepherd leaves to seek the one who is lost. The whole day’s prayer oriented toward mercy.
The Horologion: our Book of the Hours
Rev. Bro. Greywolf has prepared a complete Horologion — a Book of the Hours — for use by laypeople, families, and oblates who wish to pray the full Divine Office alongside the friars. First compiled in 2018 for Saint Finian Orthodox Abbey, it is available for purchase on Amazon as an e-book. Your purchase helps support the friary.
The Horologion assigns parts for the head of the household (as Abbot), a reader, and the rest of the family — making the ancient prayer of the Church accessible in an ordinary home. As the introduction states: “Simply put, just follow the prayer rule to the best of your abilities and as your schedule permits.”
Each Hour ends with the same dismissal that closes our own celebration at the friary:
“Let us go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”
— Dismissal, Office of the Hours
What the Horologion contains
The complete texts for all five Hours — Matins, Terce, Sext, None, and Vespers — including the Psalms, the Great and Small Litanies, the Prayer of the Hours, the Prayer of St. Mardarius, and the Dismissal. Troparia and kontakia of the day are noted where they occur.
Who it is for
Any layperson, family, or oblate who wishes to pray the Office in full. The schedule can be modified to fit a working life. The parts can be said alone or distributed among family members. It requires no prior experience with liturgical prayer.
“Pray without ceasing.”
1 Thessalonians 5:17
Pray with us
Join us in spirit at any of the five hours. And if you have a need — for yourself or someone you love — let us carry it to the altar. We pray for every intention submitted to us at each celebration of the Office.