Canonical Hours

CANONICAL HOURS: Certain portions of the day set apart according to the rule (canon) of the Church for prayer and devotion. It seems likely that the Apostolic Church observed the Jewish custom of praying three times a day (Ps. lv. 17: Acts ii. 15, iii. 1, x. 30), at the third, sixth, and ninth hour. In the fourth century, the zeal of the Psalmist (" seven times a day do I praise thee," cxix. 164) was held up for Christian imitation by Ambrose, Augustine, and Hilary, and by the time of Cassian (d. about 435) it had become a general rule of devotion. (See Breviary.) In England the term "canonical hours" also refers to the time within which marriage may legally be solemnized in a parish church without a license, which was from eight to twelve in the morning, until a recent Act of Parliament extended it to three in the afternoon.