01 August 2018

Word of the Day: Terce

TERCE. Third hour of the Divine Office, which is to be said at about 9 A.m. The beginning hymn is in commemoration of the Holy Spirit's descent on the Apostles and is followed by three variable psalms, a short reading, versicle and response, and the collect of the day. Terce is now technically part of the hora media (middle hour), said after Lauds and before Vespers. (Etym. tertius, third.)
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With the gutting of the Divine Office and its replacement with McOffice, secular clergy and Religious who do not pray the Office in common are now allowed to pick one of the Little Hours (Terce, Sext, and None) to recite sometime between 'Morning Prayer' and 'Evening Prayer' thus totally destroying the ancient framework of the Office. That framework may go back to Apostolic times, and was definitely in place by the time of St Benedict, Father of Western Monasticism in the sixth century AD. It is based on the Psalmist's 'Seven times a day I have given praise to thee, for the judgments of thy justice.' Psalm 118:164.

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