praying the hours

so, there's this tradition of praying the hours.

"Canonical hours are ancient divisions of time, developed by the Christian Church, serving as increments between the prescribed prayers of the daily round. A Book of Hours contains such a set of prayers." now to pray the hours you don't have to have a book of hours, but they are historical things. "A book of hours is the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript. Each book of hours is unique in one way or another, but all contain a collection of texts, prayers and psalms, along with appropriate illustrations, to form a reference for Catholic Christian worship and devotion."
so this is a very old tradition of being intentional about liturgy and prayer throughout your day. original book of hours are absolutely pieces of art. you can read all about them here so i learned about this tradition a year or so ago? and i thought it sounded cool, a way to incorporate more intentional talking to god and reflection and present-ness into my everyday life. so i bought this book (the merton book) because it's got the days separated into the hours and has the passages and prayers that you are suppossed to use during the different times of the day. so i'm going to dig it out (it's still in the moving mess) and see if i like the structure or not, i really think i'm going to and i think it will help manage life stress.
the old medieval books are really fantastic,so if you go to the wikipedia link i think there are some pictures of some pages. very beautiful.