His Excellency Bishop Glen John Provost celebrated the Mass of Chrism with the priests of the Diocese on Wednesday, April 16, in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. At this Mass, customarily in Holy Week, the Bishop blessed the holy oils to be used throughout the year for sacramental celebrations in the Diocese of Lake Charles. He addressed his homily to the priests and offered the following reflection:

Chrism Mass 2025

"You yourselves shall be named priests of the Lord, ministers of our God you shall be called.” Isaiah 61:6a

We have all heard the stories. Older priests, ordained before the Second Vatican Council, would recount the extreme measures they took to fulfill the obligation of reciting the Divine Office, what we refer to now as the Liturgy of Hours. An older priest of this diocese remembered returning from a long trip by car and realizing shortly before midnight that he had not been able to pray his Breviary. So, he stopped on the side of the road, kept his headlights on, and by that light prayed his Office for the day.

One of my favorite stories about fulfilling the obligation of praying the Office deals with Cardinal Richelieu. Having read multiple biographies of this Cardinal, I have reason to doubt the accuracy of the account.

But it is said that the Cardinal, a very busy man as First Minister to King Louis XIII and the theoretician of the nation state, would pray his Office one hour before midnight and after the clock had struck twelve pray the Office of the new day.

Priests in the old days would regale themselves with these stories. These rites of camaraderie are as old as Homer. For the ordained cleric they served as reminders of a serious requirement. What the stories lacked in substance regarding the psalms as prayer, they compensated by serving as admonishment to fulfill a priestly office.

Clearly the intent of the Second Vatican Council was to renew the praying of the Divine Office in the lives of the clergy and consecrated religious. It is ironic, then, that we have witnessed a diminished fidelity to the Liturgy of Hours in the lives on some priests. The intent of the renewal was not to lessen the enrichment of priestly life but to allow the psalms to sanctify the cleric’s entire day.

The Liturgy of Hours is not a substitute for the spiritual life. Rather, the praying of the psalms is to feed, nurture, and accompany the desire and efforts of the cleric or religious to grow in a deeper relationship with our Lord, who Himself prayed the psalms, accompanying his life from the synagogue to Calvary. Pope St. Paul VI in the Apostolic

Constitution introducing the revised Liturgy reminds us that the prayer of Christ and our own personal prayer “is strengthened by the Divine Office.” He continues, “Mental prayer is nourished by the readings and psalms and other parts of the Liturgy of the Hours” (#8). In the words of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the Divine Office is “a source of piety and nourishment for personal prayer” (n. 90).

We must remember that the psalms form the heart and center of that communal prayer, whether prayed alone or in concert. The Liturgy of Hours strives to preserve the ancient practice of the Church to pray the psalter, although three psalms (i.e. 58, 83, and 109) along with certain verses from others were omitted.

Their imprecations were thought inconsistent with the overall tone of the Christian message. I consider the omission lamentable, but this is only my opinion. Let us concentrate on the psalms as prayer.

Recently I came across a beautiful reference to the praying of the psalms. The writer observed that the psalms were the Scriptures in the first person. Consider this. In praying the psalms I make my own the deliverance of the Hebrew People, the rejoicing at the presence of the King, the thankfulness of the Last Supper, the Lord’s cry of abandonment from the Cross, the prayers of the early Christians awaiting the Descent of the Holy Spirit.

When we proclaim the Gospel from our pulpits, we are acting in the third person. We bring to life in the minds and hearts of the faithful the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. However, as we know, this proclamation must take on the character of a “first person.” The Gospel must be a reality in our own lives. For this to happen, the psalms are our primary assistant.

The psalms of the Liturgy of Hours are the echo in our own lives of the works of Redemption. Do they give thanks? So do we. Do they offer praise to God? Their praise is ours. Do they express the repentance of the soul? They move us to strike our breasts and cry, “Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness” (Psalm 51:1). Do they inspire hope? With them we pray, “God is present as my helper the Lord sustains my life” (Psalm 54:6).

I do not need to remind you that priests live in challenging times. Occasionally I find the world very strange indeed. To maintain equilibrium, to remain faithful to our vocation, we need the constant presence of the Eucharist in our lives. This abiding presence must overflow into the sanctification of the day which we find in our praying of the Liturgy of Hours. Once again to quote St. Paul VI, who in turn is referencing St. Augustine, “[W]hen the Divine Office is said, our voices re-echo in Christ and His in us” (Ibid, cf. St. Augustine, Enerrationes in ps. 85, II, 1).

Reformed and regrouped over the centuries, in one form or another, the psalms, which are the heart of the Divine Office, inspired the early Fathers of the Church. They sustained desert anchorites, nourished the founders of Western and Eastern monasticism, and fell from the lips of the martyrs. They were the constant companions of St. Benedict and St. Bernard, the inspiration for the great mystics, and the point of departure for the eloquence of Bossuet to Venerable Fulton Sheen. They have embellished our sacred rites from the very beginning. They give expression to our most profound hopes and aspirations, both personally and as a Church.

Is the praying of the psalms a great challenge? I would say so. But priests are not alone. Yes, they are challenged. In the words of St. John Paul II, priests “need to be educated to love the truth, to be loyal, to respect every person, to have a sense of justice, to be true to their word, to be genuinely compassionate, to be men of integrity and, especially, to be balanced in judgment and behavior” (Pastores dabo vobis, 43). All these sublime goals find expression in the Liturgy of Hours. The psalms we pray reflect these ideals. In praying them we make part of ourselves the hopes and aspirations of Christ dwelling within His Church.

May God prosper the work of our hands. In the priesthood foretold by the prophet Isaiah, may our work never be separated from the Christ, the Eternal High Priest, who is the fulfillment of those prophecies. When we represent the Sacrifice of Calvary, may we do so with the love and devotion befitting another Christ. May we join our hearts and voices in praying the Divine Office and make Christ’s prayer our own. May the psalms be the “first person” expression of our priesthood in Christ Jesus, our Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father and Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.