Invitatory in the Liturgy of the Hours

Authority level: Authoritative doctrine
Disciplinary status: Church discipline
Theological status: Theological synthesis
GuideThe entry combines Catholic doctrine about worship with approved liturgical discipline and theological explanation; the labels do not make every ceremonial norm irreformable.
Contents

Invitatory in the Liturgy of the Hours is the opening call to praise by which the Church begins the first canonical Hour celebrated in the day, ordinarily using Psalm 95 with a proper or seasonal antiphon.[1]

Beginning the daily Office

The Invitatory precedes either the Office of Readings or Morning Prayer according to which is celebrated first. It consists of the opening verse, the invitatory antiphon, and an invitatory psalm. It is not a ninth canonical Hour added to the daily cycle, but the solemn threshold through which the praying Church enters her daily sacrifice of praise.

Psalm 95 is the ordinary invitatory psalm because it summons God's people to worship, thanksgiving, and obedient hearing today. Psalms 100, 67, or 24 can be used according to the liturgical books. The antiphon is said before the psalm and repeated in the manner prescribed, interpreting the summons in relation to the season or celebration.

When Morning Prayer comes first

If Morning Prayer is the first Hour, the usual opening verse of that Hour gives way to the Invitatory. The hymn and psalmody of Morning Prayer then follow. Beginning privately with an ordinary opening and later adding an Invitatory before the Office of Readings duplicates what is meant to open the day's whole cycle.

When the Office of Readings comes first

If the Office of Readings begins the liturgical day, the Invitatory precedes it and is not repeated before Morning Prayer. The Office of Readings may be celebrated at a suitable hour, so the word day here concerns the order of one's daily Office rather than a universal requirement that the Invitatory be recited at civil midnight or before any private prayer whatsoever.

Antiphon and psalm

The invitatory antiphon can be proper to a solemnity, feast, or saint, or drawn from the season and ordinary cycle. Its repeated invitation gives a Christological and ecclesial key to the psalm without changing the psalm into a slogan. Accurate celebration follows the proper calendar and edition rather than selecting an antiphon merely because it is familiar.

The psalm warns against hardening the heart as Israel did in the wilderness. The Invitatory is therefore both praise and conversion: the Church approaches the Hours as a people summoned by God's voice. Its communal form is especially clear when a cantor proclaims the antiphon and all repeat it, but lawful individual recitation retains the same ecclesial prayer.

Relation to obligation

Clerics and others bound to the Liturgy of the Hours fulfill their obligation according to the universal and proper law that governs them. The omission or displacement of the Invitatory should be corrected according to liturgical law, but it is not prudent to invent a sacramental-validity theory for the Divine Office or to declare an entire day's prayer nonexistent because of every accidental rubric error.[2][3]

References

  1. 1.General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours — The official general instruction governing the Hours, including the extended vigil form of the Office of Readings
  2. 2.Laudis canticum — The apostolic constitution promulgating the revised Liturgy of the Hours and its four-week distribution of the Psalter
  3. 3.Sacrosanctum Concilium — Vatican II teaching on liturgical prayer, full participation, the Divine Office, and the reform of the Psalter