...ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi.

– Saint Prosper of Aquitaine¹.

So, how does one fight back against Mohammedan incursions into the everyday practices in our workplaces?

Simple!

We can use the Liturgy of the Hours to demand equality with Mohammedans in terms of room space to say our prayers in and time away from our workstations for the prayers we, as Christians, are obligated by the Apostles and strongly and deeply encouraged by the Church to say every single day of our lives.

For those of you either not brought up in the ancient liturgical traditions of Christianity, or not worshipping in that way, let me explain what I mean and outline why I think that you, too, could use this form of fightback without compromising the particular details of your own Christian belief.

The Hours of the Church,usually known as The Liturgy of the Hours² is the richest single prayer resource of the Christian Church. It provides prayers, psalms and meditation for every hour of every day. It has existed from the earliest times of Christianity and it exists in order to fulfil our Lord's command to pray without ceasing. Any priest, minister or pastor of almost any branch of Christianity will be able to advise anyone as to how to follow Christ and the Apostles and make use of the Liturgy of the Hours in any time allotted to them for prayer.

The command to pray never endingly has come down to us from Paul of Tarsus and is in his first letter to the Thessalonians in Chapter 5 at Verse 17 (KJV)³:

This letter by Paul to the Thessalonicans is, however, far more important than merely being a pastoral letter to a congregation he had founded as the Apostle to the Gentiles, important though such pastoral letters are. This First Epistle to the Thessalonians was actually written and completed in AD52 and it is, therefore, the first written book of the New Testament. As such it is extremely interesting in the lights that it sheds on the practices of the Church in the first few years after Pentecost (KJV: Acts 2:1-6), or the Birthday of the Church as it is known.

From this letter, and other sources, we know that prayer, and praying both night and day, to glorify and worship God was obviously of the utmost importance and took place in all Christian communities. Therefore that activity had to have been approved of by the Apostles who in turn must have believed it to be the correct thing to do because of their intimate knowledge of Jesus Christ.

However, apart from that we know that the first Christians continued with the Jewish practice of praying at given and known hours of the day or night. It is of note that one can find expressions like "in the morning I offer you my prayer"; "At midnight I will rise and thank you" ; "Evening, morning and at noon I will cry and lament"; "Seven times a day I praise you" in the Psalms.

We also know for definite that the Apostles observed the Jewish custom of praying at the third, sixth and ninth hour and at midnight and certainly at other set times, (KJV: Acts 10:3, 9; 16:25; and other references). The Christian prayer hours of that time we know consisted of almost the same elements as the Jewish: the recital, or chanting, of psalms, readings from the Old Testament, to which were very soon added readings of the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles, and canticles such as the Gloria in Excelsis Deo. Other elements were added later, but the basic form of the Liturgy of the Hours remains exactly as the very earliest Christians and the Apostles, would have known it.

So, what, exactly and precisely, are the 'Hours'?

Traditionally the Hours for the laity⁴ are:

• Matins which is usually observed with Lauds (dawn prayer) at dawn or, much more usually, on waking,

• Prime (early morning prayer) which is usually said half way between Matins with Lauds, and Terce,

• Terce (mid-morning prayer) which is usually said around about 9:00am, though most workers delay this until morning tea (coffee) break,

• Sext (midday prayer) which is usually said by workers at their lunch break,

• None (mid-afternoon prayer) which is usually performed at around 3:00pm, though most workers delay this until their afternoon beverage break,

• Vespers (evening prayer) usually at around 6:00pm, or “at the lighting of the lamps” (as the Orthodox Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified phrases it),

• Compline (night prayer) said at around 9:00pm or before retiring for the night.

Although the Hours for the laity above are traditional and in use in almost all the Western Churches and the Breviary promulgated by Pope John XXIII is still in use, as are all the older Breviaries, Prayer Books and Service Books which contain the Hours from the other denominations of Christianity, a few of the congregations of some Churches in the West have changed the Hours just a little by following the new Roman Breviary promulgated by Pope Paul VI after Vatican II which gives the Hours as follows:

• The Officium lectionis or the Office of Readings (formerly Matins), now a Major Hour,

• Lauds, or Morning prayer, also a Major Hour,

• Daytime prayer which can be one or all of

  • Terce (mid-morning prayer) now a Minor Hour

  • Sext (midday prayer) also a Minor Hour

  • None (mid-afternoon prayer) a Minor Hour,

• Vespers (evening prayer) a Major Hour,

• Compline (night prayer) a Major Hour.

The Hour of Prime has vanished from this list which has led to the general feeling that the list is not altogether right for the existence of Prime right from the beginning of Christianity is copiously evidenced. The division of the Hours into Major and Minor Hours is also not universally liked and is seen as only having little historical and spiritual validity. However, which list of the Hours that one chooses to use must be an individual choice.

To sum up – if you are working when the times I give below occur then you will need not only a quiet place to pray but also prayer breaks at these times:

• Midnight for Matins (nocturnal prayer for the coming of morning)

• 3:00am for Lauds (dawn prayer)

• 6:00am for Prime (early morning prayer)

• Between 9:00am and 10:00am for Terce (mid-morning prayer)

• Midday for Sext (midday prayer)

• Around 3:00pm for None (mid-afternoon prayer)

• About 6:00pm for Vespers (evening prayer)

• Approximately 9:00pm for Compline (night prayer).

If you only work during the day then see the first bulleted list of the Hours (above).

Worldwide, tens of millions, possibly hundreds of millions (the exact figure is hard to ascertain⁵), of we Christians already say the Hours quietly to ourselves at our workstations or in our breaks and we should continue to do that rather than disrupt our workplaces unless the Mohammedans who work in the same places demand special treatment. If that happens then we must, we really must, stand up and demand equality for our Christian spiritual practices and that equality must be exactly whatever the Mohammedans get we also get. If it's a dedicated, Mohammedans only, prayer room then we get a chapel. If it's paid time off for prayer then we get the same. If it's clock off and back on for prayer time then we get that too. If we have to share a prayer space with the Mohammedans (and that is an extremely unreasonable request for an employer to make) then our Christian needs must take precedence over their devil-worshipping desires.

Now, the actual prayers that are said by the tens of millions of us who already observe the Hours in our own quiet ways can be found in many places. If you are a Roman Catholic the Liturgy of the Hours is contained within the Roman Breviary and any priest should be able to advise you on how best to pray the Hours in any time allotted to you by your employer⁶. If you are Orthodox, or an Eastern Catholic, then the fixed prayers for the Hours can be found in the Great Horologion and, again, any priest should be able to advise you as to how to pray the Hours in any time given to you for that purpose⁶.

If you belong to the Anglican (Episcopalian) communion then the Liturgy of the Hours can be found in your Book of Common Prayer as well as in the Anglican Breviary and, as with the Orthodox and Catholic, any priest will be able to advise you on how to use the prayers in any time made available to you⁶. If you follow the Lutheran tradition then the Hours are also in whatever liturgical books have been authorised for use by your synod (for example the 'Lutheran Service Book', 'Evangelical Lutheran Worship', or 'Lutheran Worship') and, as with the other denominations already mentioned, any priest, minister, or pastor will be able to instruct you as to how to use the prayers of the Hours in any time you may be given to do so⁶.

If you don't happen to worship within one of the great and ancient liturgical traditions of the Church then you may be unfamiliar with the structured and ancient liturgical idea of worship as the sacrifice of praise which is embodied within the praying of the Hours (for both Christians and Jews, incidentally). Please don't let that put you off if the need for action arises in your workplace. Liaise with the other Christians there many of whom will know about the Liturgy of the Hours – and some will already be praying the Hours privately – then go and talk to a minister or pastor of your own denomination and seek his or her advice. If he, or she, is truly a Christian with knowledge of the Bible and of the very earliest days of the Church and the prayer routines of the Apostles and has liturgical knowledge too then, I have no doubt, you will be guided by him, or her, as to how you can take part in the praying of the Hours, and thereby support your fellow Christians everywhere against the incursion of Mohammedanism, without compromising your own particular beliefs.

If anyone who reads this post finds him or her self in a such a position as to need to take the action I have outlined herein and campaign for equal prayer rights in the workplace with Mohammedans and would like further information then please feel free to email me here at NER. I'll do my very best to help with any query you send to me and to support you in any way that I practically can.

To conclude – we, as laity, are strongly obliged and encouraged by the Church to pray the Hours, but the Apostles command us to do so as part of the necessity placed on all Christians to pray ceaselessly. Our lives should be part of the prayer and the other part should be actual prayer. There is, surely, no better way to give the lie to the evil of Mohammedanism and its never ending propaganda war against us than by actually living in God and praying the Hours for all to see and take part in, when such is made necessary by the vile antics of the devil worshipping Mohammedans.

Footnotes:

1. 'Let the rule for prayer determine the rule of belief' or lex orandi, lex credendi. Either way, it means 'the rule of prayer is the rule of faith'. Saint Prosper of Aquitaine (circa AD390 to c. AD463); not to be confused with Lex credendi legem statuat supplicandi – 'let the rule of belief determine the rule of prayer'.

2. Other names for the Liturgy of the Hours within the Western Church or Latin Rite include the Divine Office, the Diurnal and Nocturnal Office, the Ecclesiastical Office, Cursus ecclesiasticus, or simply cursus.

3. Paul of Tarsus probably wrote this letter from Corinth in Greece, but writings added to this work in many early manuscripts (in the Codices Alexandrinus, Mosquensis, and Angelicus amongst others) contend that Paul wrote it in Athens after Timothy had returned from Macedonia with news of the state of the Church in Thessalonica: Acts 18:1-5; 1 Thessalonians. 3:6 (KJV). Mostly the letter has a very personal tone and it's only in the last couple of chapters that Paul talks about faith, prayer, belief and doctrine. It seems that Paul's main idea in writing this letter to the faithful in Thessalonica was to encourage and reassure them. Paul counsels them to go on as normal and peacefully while waiting hopefully for Christ's coming in glory.

4. The Hours for priests, monks, nuns and the other religious are nearly the same but sometimes take place at different times of the day depending on the constitution of the Order in question.

5. Everywhere I go, all over the world, I find groups of people, usually, but by no means invariably, Anglican, Catholic or Orthodox, praying the Hours. On my last trip to the USA I was privileged to join with three members of staff and two guests at my hotel for some of the Hours all of whom were of Protestant denominations that normally I never come into contact with, which, as I learnt, is my loss. On a recent trip that took in many different countries I encountered many hundreds of people who all prayed the Hours as often as they could and I enjoyed joining in with both Orthodox and Eastern Catholic people in the praying of the Hours in many strange places including late at night with workers waiting for a train in a railway shed in Belarus, with a Russian Orthodox group of fishermen in an ornate wooden house in the southern forest of Siberia, with a congregation in an Orthodox Church in Kazakhstan and with a group of workmen, mainly Lutherans, in a partly-built road tunnel in southern Germany. We Christians who follow the Liturgy of the Hours are everywhere and we pray the Hours to glorify God wherever and whenever we can.

6. The various prayer books and service books from our many Christian denominations can often be found online by using a search engine of your choice. For example, the Church of England Book of Common Prayer can be found here and the Roman Breviary for Catholics can be found at this site (a Breviary with the Hours in Latin can be found here). Any priest, minister, or pastor of your particular denomination ought to be able to point you at the relevant book online. I've also found three Horologions online which may be of use to the Orthodox and they are here, here and here.