Transcript of CS#96: William Michael Liturgy of the Hours and Classical Liberal Arts Academy

Transcript of Interview with William Michael about the Liturgy of the Hours and the Classical Liberal Arts Academy. This interview and others like it can be found at http://www.catholicspotlight.com

Listen Now to the audio version of the show.

Liturgy of the Hours at The Catholic Company.

http://www.catholiccompany.com/catholic-books/1033343/Liturgy-Hours-Set-4-Leather/

———————————
Chris Cash: Welcome to Catholic Spotlight. This is the Catholic Spotlight, the podcast where we talk about what’s new, cool and exciting in the Catholic marketplace. My name is Chris Cash, director of E-Commerce for catholiccompany.com, your source for all your Catholic needs.

And today in this Spotlight, we have William Michael; he is the director of the Classical Liberal Arts Academy. Welcome William.

William Michael: Thank you.

Chris Cash: Now, today we’re going to talk a little bit about the classical Liberal – well, my tongue is little tied on that one. Classical Liberal Arts Academy, what Classical Liberal Arts Academy does, what it is, as well he had – Michael has a real – excuse me. William, you’ve really got me tongue tied today. With such a long name and such a long name for your organization. We’re going to be talking also with William about the Liturgy of the Hours because he has got a really awesome weekly guide to the Liturgy of the Hours that comes out at his Website.

So, let’s just start by talking about what is the Classical Liberal Arts Academy?

William Michael: Well, very simply, it’s the return to one is education that focuses on the cultivation and development of the soul rather than focusing wrongly on the body and on *** [01:43] but this life. It’s essentially a return what was defined as not only Catholic education, but also the education that was enjoyed by all religious men, all wise men of the past. Mainly, because of the focus and benefit for the soul.

Chris Cash: Now, is this a full curriculum online?

William Michael: It is a – yes, it’s a full curriculum. There is seminars, and when you look at the arts, you see only 7 subjects and it may look like when you think of all the subjects that are normally listed in the modern curriculum. But really most of the modern subjects are divisions of several liberal arts or addition of modern subjects like special sciences or even math’s and things like that. But it is a full curriculum.

Chris Cash: And what are the age ranges of the children that this caters to?

William Michael: Well, the Classical Liberal Arts is progressive and therefore really and early as a child can start better they’ll be, because they start on that progress. So, we have children as young as age 5 and 6, starting in the programs grammar and catechism. And, but at the same time we’ve got students starting at 15, 16 who are finding about it late. So, basically, there is no age limit as far how early the children can start, sometimes parents have to help the younger kids, but that’s really not a problem at all.

Chris Cash: Now, what was it that got you started doing this?

William Michael: Well, as an undergraduate student I studied classics and I – that as a 20 year old learning philosophy for the first time, thinking of theology for the first time, reading *** [03:27] for the first time. And would always concern me or what my question was, why did we learn that so late, why didn’t we study this at the high school or a middle school. It answered so many fundamental questions, it helped me with the language skills and things that were expected of me when I graduated high school, but there are things you never learned. And my question is always, you know why didn’t we learn these things earlier. They seemed to be so important but left out in modern curriculum.

Chris Cash: And how long have you been running the Classical Liberal Arts Academy?

William Michael: Well, I’ve been teaching in private academies for almost 10 years, so I’ve taught the courses in various ways in different arrangements, but the Classical Liberal Arts Academy itself was officially launched this past August.

Chris Cash: Okay, so are you getting a good response out of it so far?

William Michael: Absolutely. We had a confident enrollment and information request from all over the countries, a lot of countries. And really without any advertising at all, so the interest we’ve had and which has almost got us maxed out in terms of what we can handle has come with really nothing other than word of mouth advertising and just a word down through the Home School and Catholic Community.

Chris Cash: So, this is your first kind of radio interview then?

William Michael: Absolutely.

Chris Cash: Boy, get ready for the explosion now, all right.

William Michael: Let’s see.

Chris Cash: And of course, you confined the Classical Liberal Arts Academy and classicalliberalarts.com, if you’ve got trouble spelling that come over to Catholic Spotlight, I have a link in the show, no its along with the show. So, now, you mentioned enrollment, what comes along with an enrollment in the academy?

William Michael: Well, the classes in the Classical Liberal Arts Academy are based on the old Jesuit model that was used throughout history, and they set up schools all over the world. They didn’t have much time to resources or manpower, but they’ve been managed to educate 1000’s of kids. And we looked at their model and saw how technology could help us to imitate it and apply it today in a way that could actually serve kids all around the world. So, the courses are self teaching. Parents don’t need to plan lessons; they don’t need to teach the classes, they simply enroll the children. The enrollment gets hem a full years worth of studies. We manage their lessons; we provide their lessons through a student page, they have online. And they can simply printout their lessons to study them away from the computer throughout the year and take exams online or do the entire course online, and all the exams are automatically graded. So, we really take care of everything.

Chris Cash: Now, you also do some private instruction in the Charlotte area, correct?

William Michael: That’s correct, yes.

Chris Cash: But the majority of this is all just online and run by the parent in the home?

William Michael: That’s correct, yes. Supervised. We really don’t put that much of pressure on the parents. We know the parents generally aren’t said to teach the subjects in the Classical Liberal Arts curriculum, so really the parents are expected to supervise and we have the instruction.

Chris Cash: Now, you also have a live chat, Monday through Friday from 7:00 to10:00. What the – what – can you tell us a little bit about that?

William Michael: That’s correct. Sure. We expect the children and really encourage the children to be in touch with an instructor. Some of you know as the subject help them, so they have access. Mainly to me in the evenings between 7:00 to 10:00 for any questions they have and help they need in their work and that’s over to parents as well. So, rather than a parent or a child going isolated and not having anyone to ask a question, they can just get on and chat and get an instant response. We help them through their exams; we help them understand lessons and answer questions. And then, a lot of times there are just questions the kids would like to ask that come out of their lesions and we have fun answering those as well.

Chris Cash: Now, do you – is this live chat kind of like a group setting or is it just individual one on one consultation?

William Michael: It’s individual between a student or parent and their instructor.

Chris Cash: Okay. Well, was their anything else you wanted to share with our listeners about the Classical Liberal Arts Academy?

William Michael: Yes. No, I just invite them to visit the Society and read the articles that they are interested, because there is ton’s of information resources available that we get pretty good feedback on. So, I’ll just invite them to visit the site.

Chris Cash: All right. And I highly encourage everybody to at least check it out. Make sure that you find out what’s going on, ‘cause this really is an excellent program. And I think that you know even if you are not at home schooler; there is something that you get out of checking this out and maybe even getting involved with it little bit.

Do you have anybody in your curriculum who is not a home schooler or just using bits and pieces?

William Michael: Oh, sure, yes. We have people who – for example we have students who have taken year to in Latin and then stopped but wanted to continue, they can continue on *** [08:57]. But we have adults that are signed up for the basic grammar and catechism courses, because they never studied it and want to go back and try to get something in the Classical education. So, we got a full range of students, whether they are young children starting out full program or students in schools taking individual courses here and there and even adults are trying to catch by on an education that they missed…

Chris Cash: It sounds really awesome. So moving on, we’re going to talk now about the Liturgy of the Hours. And one of the great things about the Liturgy of the Hours is you know the church has two official prayers, one being the mass and one is the Liturgy of the Hours, sometimes also called the Divine Office. So, what – do you know anything about the history of where the Liturgy of the Hours came from?

William Michael: Oh, sure. When we look back into the Old Testament, we’ve see the life of David for example through songs. And we see often songs, references that he makes to praying at various hours and times. And there is one song in particular where he mentions praying 7 times a day. And as we continue to see the development of religious life in Israel, we get to the time of Jesus and we see that they had set hours of prayer. We have been praying into 3rd hour or the 6th hour or the 9th hour. And so, we see this tradition of hourly prayer all through the history of god’s people. And really it was simply continued on through the church and it has developed over the past several 100 years.

Chris Cash: Now, why is it that the Liturgy of the Hours or the divine house is the second official prayer of the church as apposed to something like the rosary or something that has a wider following?

William Michael: Well, I think that when most people think of the Liturgy of the Hours first time through, they were looking at it for benefits that that receive from it, they are looking at it as a form of private emotion and they sort of missed the big picture to really appreciate the Liturgy of the Hours. We need to step back and think of the Catholic Church throughout the world. For example Morning Prayer would begin somewhere in the east and will be repeated every hour through the entire day around the world. And if you think about it that way, you can imagine the church offering up this constant endless prayer, using the Liturgy of the Hours where they’re all united, offering of prayers throughout the world at all times with one voice. And it gives you this picture of what really is the universal catholic church expressing all of its cares and desires and prayers to god, all together throughout the world. And it allows us to become part of that and really unifies the church and makes prayer what it really should be to the catholic mean and women.

Chris Cash: And another thing that that really unites the Liturgy of the Hours is that all priests as well as I believe almost all religious nuns and brothers also are required to do it throughout the day.

William Michael: That’s correct.

Chris Cash: So, even if they are not going to mass everyday, a priest or a religious is committed to doing the hours.

William Michael: That’s right. And there is different requirement, some orders will do simply evening and Morning Prayer, but there are some that do the entire full course of hourly prayers.

Chris Cash: Now, I think one of the things that holds people back from the Liturgy of the Hours is that it is seen by many as just being really complicated, specially when you get the books and you’ve got these note cards that tell you where you have to turn now and then, you’ve got to flip here and then you got to go over here. And it’s back and forth and takes quite a bit of training at least initially to get started. Is it getting any easier or are there easier ways to manage getting started with the Liturgy of the Hours?

William Michael: No, it doesn’t only seem complicated, it is very complicated. And that’s what led me to really begin to develop a weekly guide, because there are other guides published and they are simple enough, but it still takes time to prepare, to learn how the books work, to learn where the prayers are and all that. And if you are already busy and you are trying to make time to pray and then you’ve got to add to that, the burden of finding prayers and getting lost in pages or thinking you are praying long prayers. You end up discouraged and so, that difficulty is definitely an obstacle for many people. And I believe that with the guide that we developed, it scripts the entire day of prayers for you with the page numbers in detail. So, rather than having to do any of that flipping around or trying to figure out where things are, you simply follow the guide and turn to the exact page in terms of – it takes all of that confusion there.

Chris Cash: Now, your guide is specifically for the larger set, what we call the 4 volume set.

William Michael: Correct. Yes.

Chris Cash: Okay, so and that of course is the more complicated harder to use set, but there are some simpler volumes available which may not go – may not include all of the Liturgy of the Hours, but at least included the basic parts of it than you need to have a beginning devotion.

William Michael: That’s right.

Chris Cash: And there are also several other helping books available to help somebody out who wants to learn more about it and get into it slowly. There is a much smaller one volume version that you can get, it’s called the Christian Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours. It’s not by any means as extensive as the 4 volume set, but it’s a good place where you could get started.

William Michael: Well, sure but that’s Christian Prayer of the single volume only covers morning and evening prayer. That’s a little difference. On the office of reading which really the glory of the Liturgy is – the Liturgy of the Hours is the office of reading because it contains you know readings from church fathers and some scriptures for everyday of the year. So, to not pray office of reading will be to loose out on all of the church fathers reading that is there. So, you know that’s the reason why the 4 full volume instead is worth the money.

Chris Cash: So, how many times a day do you pray with the full Liturgy of the Hours?

William Michael: Well, we would start out with Morning Prayer and then there is a midday prayer, you know we pray around noontime and then there is evening prayer, we just pray around out dinner time. Then there is an office of reading which can be prayed anytime, but usually it’s prayed in the evening, and then there is a night prayer before bed. So, you look at it like that and there is 4 or 5 main times with prayer and there is couple of extras also. There is one for a mid morning prayer around 9 ‘o clock A.M. Then there is a mid afternoon prayer for 3:00 A.M. so. But those are optional, the mains who are always morning and evening. Office of readings can be done at anytime. And the goal is not to keep every single hour which really for most late people is not realistic, but its there where you can keep as many as possible. And its personally challenging to see just how many you can incorporate into your life *** [16:59].

Chris Cash: Well, you know when you say it’s something about, “It’s not realistic to be able to do that,” that brings to mind to me immediately the Muslim tradition where they have their 5 daily prayers and they all do it. You know I used to work in a secular company and there was a specific stairwell in the complex where there were some prayer mats set up underneath the stairs. And quite often I’d go by there and see the middle of the day prayers going on with some of my Muslim co-workers. Just because it’s not the easiest thing to do, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be done by someone in these times.

William Michael: Yes. Yes, I think that’s the long terms vision that we should have. We should have a vision where – we should look at the Muslim and admire the time that they have and look at ourselves and wonder where that is in our own lives. And the Liturgy of the Hours gives us a good goal, gives us a good vision of what’s possible. And in all reality as Americans, we tend to enjoy quite a bit of leisure. And that leisure can be converted from this sort of ideal time, bored time, watching TV time into real fruitful helpful prayers and devotions readings. And so, I think you are right, it is possible. And its good goal for us, maybe that’s the best value of it for us. Today is to see where things can be and making it our aim to get there.

Chris Cash: Yes. I mean, wouldn’t it be tremendous if we could raise our religious devotion to the point as a culture. Just like the Muslims at the – you know it would really re-evangelize our entire culture if we as Catholics could raise our religious devotions to that level.

William Michael: And it would sanctify our lives. Okay, the spiritual benefits of it alone are worthy of Catholics. We got to realize just how much information there is in terms of devotional reading, how much benefit there in praying a song, in praying all the hours. To have all of your thoughts and prayers and emotions and interest guided by this official guides from the church and see how that unites all Christians and brings everyone together and desiring all the same things, obviously would have tremendous influence on the growth of and life of the church.

Chris Cash: Now, the service that you do with the Liturgy of the Hours it’s a once a week e-mail, right?

William Michael: That’s right, yes.

Chris Cash: So, once a week you get an email and it basically outlines everything that you need to do with the larger volume set in order to pray the entire Liturgy as it is.

William Michael: That’s right.

Chris Cash: Simple enough.

William Michael: Yes, it’s a full script. It includes page numbers, it’s followed by the day you are on and the hour that you are praying and it’s guides you through the entire thing.

Chris Cash: I don’t think we could ask for it to be much simpler than that other than you just putting the whole thing on to the page and mailing in each week. Of course that might take a lot to print out.

William Michael: Yes, I am not going to try that.

Chris Cash: And are there any other resources for the Liturgy of the Hours?

William Michael: Well, actually in the Liturgy of the Hours in this run of the first volume, there is great articles written on the history, the purpose and how the – all the different parts of Liturgy work together. So, I would recommend by *** [20:50], he said just that first set of essays beginning up the Liturgy of the Hours series to do that, its got great stuff.

Chris Cash: Sounds good. So, we encourage everybody to at least check out and you can find the Liturgy of the Hours resource from the Classical Liberal Arts Academy over at classicliberalarts.com. There is a link on the front page going straight to it. We’ll also have a link over in our show notes in catholicspotlight.com. And we’re going to take a short break to hear from our sponsor, but when we come back we’ll be speaking more with William Michael, the director of the Classical Liberal Arts Academy. We’re going to hear a little about his personal conversion story. This is the Catholic Spotlight.

[Break]

And we’re back on the Catholic Spotlight with Mike – with William Michael, director of the Classical Liberal Arts Academy. And we’ve just spent some talking about what the academy is, what it does, as well as the Liturgy of the Hours. Right now I wanted to hear more about your personal conversion story, ‘cause you know I have not heard much of it. But I am told it’s quite a doosey.

William Michael: Well, I started out well, I was baptized Catholic. Attended Catholic CCD classes until I was about 12 years old. I had my first communion. But when I was around 13, my mother went to work and she was really the spiritual influence in my life. And we stopped going to church, I stopped going to catechisms class and from the age 13 through high school, I really just sort of floundered. I played sports which was my whole life. And when I was 17, I met a girl in high school whose family is Evangelical and they invited me to church. I started to go to church with them and I always missed going to church, I always had something of a religious spirit or a sense in god’s presence in my life. But I just did nothing. And so, we started going to church and I think of studying quite diligently, studying the faith and when I went to college studying pre-med student and then converted the classics – that’s another long story. But started studying the classics and I was involved in Christian youth groups and all that sort of stuff.

I went to college, did great, earned all sorts of awards for academics, and then started teaching. I was, teaching in a private protestant school in North Jersey and I was teaching great books. And as I went through the class and was going through all the great books, I taught Saint Augustine’s confessions and I thought *** [24:46]. And loved really loved them. And as time went on, I had more and more questions, and what would happen was when my first child was born in 2000, I was in a Baptist church that didn’t practice baptism. And I wanted my son baptized and this was sort of a natural desire that I had was of course he should be baptized and so that led me to being saying that all the expressions of theology and baptism and that is and that. And finally, we joined the *** [25:17] l church, because we were friends with a *** [25:21] Rector. But the questions continued and the answers weren’t embarrassed, so we continued on and kept asking questions and reading and this and that. And as time went on I found more and more that I was getting all the best answers from catholic office, whether it was Saint Augustine or *** [25:40] or Thomas Aquinas, it seemed the best answers always came from Catholic office. But we were so thoroughly trained that Kabbalahism was anti-Christian and couldn’t possibly be true that we didn’t even consider an option. Until the time went on, the questions continued and we really had got through the point where we just thought that there was no place to go to find answers to our questions. And one night it was late, because one night we were up and I was just flipping through the channels and I came across Mother Angelica and I saw her on TV you know in a *** [26:20] and everything I was watching. And I just said there is something just so interesting about this women. And I didn’t think twice about it, I turned it off. Then a few weeks later, my wife and I were talking again and I said, “Why don’t we just go and visit a Catholic Church and see what its like. Let’s just go take the ride, we go to mass on Sunday and see.” I never had any bad experience in Catholic Church, so I wasn’t afraid. My wife, she was almost terrified to go because of all the things she was taught. But I finally got her going there and we went. And again, I felt perfect and comfortable and enjoyed it. And at the end of the mass, I looked over at wife and then she was actually really upset moved by it all that how beautiful it was, how wonderful everything was and how – and she had a sense that she had been lied to all her life about what Kabbalahism was and the Catholic Church was. And we decided to convert shortly thereafter, that was *** [27:19] before.

I had been given the job at the time, I was actually writing great books program being published by a publisher. He wasn’t too happy when I decided to convert to Kababalahism. But we gave that up and moved to North Carolina and have been the- happy members of the church ever since.

Chris Cash: Well, thank you for sharing that with us. It certainly gives us some insight to why you have had such a fascination with the classical education as well.

William Michael: Well, I saw them leave me back into the church. And I think there are a lot of people going to that same sort of thing, people who are receiving the classical education, even in Protestant schools. And that classical education is leading them into truth and leading them into questions. That really the answers are only found from the Catholic Church doctors. And I think that that’s going to be a trend that we see a increasing or more of time in the future.

Chris Cash: What was the most influential thing that you read in the doctors and in your classical training that really made you stop and go huh and investigate the Catholic Church more?

William Michael: Well, it really was – it was the sort of the other way around. It wasn’t so much that what I saw in the church bothers helped me to see new things. It was that the things that I had believed as a protestant were not there. That was the main thing. It was concern that I had. For example in a Baptist church where no infants are baptized. I tried to back and meet the church fathers where infant baptisim is assumed. Those sorts of blessings where challenging ones for me. And its just – as it went on the question continue and you then you get – you have to get in the questions of the church authority, or the nation and all sorts of things like that. And the more that those questions are opened up and you look back through church history, you just find that there is no other denomination or group that can have the continuity with what’s going on ever since the beginning of the Christian Church, except for the Catholic Church. So, it’s more of what is not present in the Church fathers that what is present that helped me to realize that I needed to return to Catholic Church,

Chris Cash: Well, William you have done a great service to us and hopefully, are also doing a great service to all the people who are coming to study in the Classical Liberal Arts Academy. Well, anything you wanted to finish up on?

William Michael: No, I just like once again to invite people to visit the site and read the resources and check things out. There is some other need stuff on there too, its not just intended for students, its not all academic. There is a guide who like prayers on there, where we walk students through all the Latin prayers that are used n mass and explain them help each other out. Understanding you know how they are pronounced, that sort of thing. There is resources for home school parents, there is resources just on the history of education and curriculum development and all that sort of stuff generally the parents are interested in. And then you got the Liturgy Hours guide and another resources were developed. There is tons of stuff online; I would just really like the people to check that all out.

Chris Cash: Well, good deal. I hope that everybody will go on head on over check that out over at classicalliberalarts.com. Make sure to also come on over to catholicspotlight.com. Check out some of our other shows, if you haven’t listened to some of our older shows yet. Also, please make sure to vote for us over at pod cast alley. It helps to bring new people in as well as to leave comments about us, positive ones that is. Positive comments for us over in iTune store and always, always, always helpful if you got a blog or a Website to just drop us a link on your side bar, man, that just – it helps more than you know. And for the Catholic Spotlight, this is Chris Cash *** [31:34] say thank you for listening. And I hope to hear you all back again net week. William, thank you for coming on and God bless.

William Michael: God bless. Thank you.

———————————

Transcript of Interview with William Michael about the Liturgy of the Hours and the Classical Liberal Arts Academy. This interview and others like it can be found at http://www.catholicspotlight.com

Listen Now to the audio version of the show.

Liturgy of the Hours at The Catholic Company.

http://www.catholiccompany.com/catholic-books/1033343/Liturgy-Hours-Set-4-Leather/