Q&A with the Author of The Handy Little Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours

Many months ago, when Old Bay Goldfish were first released, I could not get my hands on a single bag. Barbara Szyszkiewicz—aka @FranciscanMom—found a package near her home in New Jersey and sent it to me.

And the angels sang.

When Barb isn’t saving me from life without Old Bay-flavored snacks, she is writing and editing—and she recently published The Handy Little Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours. I’ve been curious about the Liturgy of the Hours, but I’m not familiar with the prayers.

I reached out to ask Barb to share a little about her book and this beautiful practice.

What inspired/prompted you to create this particular book?

I was asked to write this book by Rebecca Martin, my editor at Our Sunday Visitor. So, I guess the better question might be, “Why did your editor choose you to write this book?” Rebecca knows that as a Secular Franciscan, I pray Morning and Evening Prayer from Liturgy of the Hours daily. I covered the Liturgy of the Hours very briefly in my previous book, The Handy Little Guide to Prayer, but in the scope of that book I couldn’t give it much more than a mention. This was a welcome opportunity for me to write an introduction to a type of prayer that’s a pretty well-kept secret, but which is too beautiful not to discuss!

Is the Liturgy of the Hours part of your daily prayer life? If so, can you speak a little about how that came to be—and what it means to you?

A campus ministry retreat in college was the first opportunity for me to experience praying the Liturgy of the Hours. Looking back, I think it’s pretty impressive that in the mid-1980s a college campus ministry retreat included liturgical prayer. Father Campbell, the chaplain at the time, began a Sunday-evening tradition of Benediction and Night Prayer and, as a liturgical musician, I was expected to participate. That got me, and some friends, in the door, and we saved up our money to buy ourselves copies of Christian Prayer, the single-volume breviary. Sometimes we would meet to pray that together, but we prayed it on our own, and I kept that practice going, off and on, for another decade until I began formation with the Secular Franciscans and solidified this prayer as a daily practice. 

If I could find one blessing in the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, it’s that my husband decided he wanted to learn to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, as well. He uses a podcast to pray other Hours, but we pray Evening Prayer together after dinner.

Tell me a little about the Liturgy of the Hours. Do you have a sense of its history and how it has been used over the years?

The Liturgy of the Hours originally developed from the Jewish practice of praying three times daily, which was integrated into the prayer life of the early Church. During the monastic age, the custom of praying at fixed times each day was modified and developed into the liturgical practice we know today. The Second Vatican Council encouraged the laity to take up this practice alongside priests and religious. But 60 years later, there are still very many faithful Catholics who have never heard of the Liturgy of the Hours, and many others who have tried it but given up because they found it confusing or complex.

What are your hopes for the book—and what readers will experience?

I am hoping that the book will serve two purposes: to introduce Catholics to a form of prayer they’d never known about, and to reassure the ones who’ve tried it unsuccessfully that it’s possible, with persistence, to learn to pray this way—and that it can be a very fruitful form of prayer. I am self-taught, as far as the Liturgy of the Hours goes, so I’ve experienced that learning curve for myself. And I taught my husband how to use the breviary.

As you worked on this piece, was there anything that was surprising to you? 

I was surprised at the proportion of Catholics who had heard of Liturgy of the Hours and immediately written it off as too difficult. The perception is that this type of prayer is too hard to learn. I won’t sugar-coat things and say it’s actually easy, because it’s not. There’s a learning curve, but you get to learn as you pray—and pray as you learn.

Tell me about releasing the book! What has been particularly rewarding?

Releasing a book is always a struggle for authors because we have to toot our own horns. I’m always happy to share the news about other writers’ work—but it’s much more difficult when it’s my own. One lovely surprise was a request for enough signed copies of my book to share with a group of retreatants later this spring: they will be learning to pray the Liturgy of the Hours during this retreat.

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Thank you, Barb, for the interview!

If you’re interested, here is a link to The Handy Little Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours. Whatever prayer routine you embrace this Easter season, I hope it’s a fruitful one for you.

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