PURPOSE OF THIS BLOG

The PURPOSE of this Blog 

is to create a Community of People

 interested in discussing 

the SAINT GABRIEL HOURS blog

in the light of Bishop Malesic's Pastoral Letter

A Flourishing Apostolic Church

I invite every Catholic in the Diocese of Cleveland to read this pastoral letter in its entirety, as I have written it with each of you in mind. Make notes and underline your copy of the letter; Consider reading it more than just once. then, meet with some other Catholics who have read this letter and discuss it in a small group. Over the next year I would like this letter to be at the forefront of conversations around the diocese. (page 2)

The author of this post, Jack Rakosky, read the bishop's letter at the end of December underlining key passages by pasting them to a preliminary blog post on the Cleveland Commonweal Local Community site, and frequently revising comments upon them until March1st. The purpose of comments is to begin discussions with others, at first the Commonweal network, and now people in Lake County.

The Bishop's Pastoral Letter: Prayer and Small Communities

The Divine Office has been central to the story of my life since junior high. In the Forward to the Roman Breviary in English, translated mainly for women religious, Cardinal Spellman expressed the hope that since the Breviary was becoming the prayer book of nuns in the convent that it would become the Vade Mecum of the man in the street. That certainly happened to me. However, the complexity and cost of Breviaries II did not make it easy the pray the Hours with others.

That has all changed with the advent of YouTube. Now there are available not only daily posts of the complete Hours of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, but also an abundance of psalms and hymns. When Covid came, I began to collect these, so that our household could celebrate the Hours. 

In 2022, Word on Fire ministries began publishing a monthly booklet that reads straight though like a book, I decided to begin a simpler blog that would give beginners a small selection of YouTube choices that could provide sufficient variety to accommodate different tastes in music while creating a community that could discuss their experiences. 

Saint Gabriel Hours is meant to