Dear Stephen:

You are referring to the range of times for the respective Offices that I posted here. Four-Thirty is the earilest time you can legitimately pray Vespers (Evening Prayer), because the Church says that any earlier is not evening. This ruling was specifically directed to the celebration of a Vigil Mass. If the Sunday Vigil Mass is celebrated before 4:00 on Saturday, it is not a Sunday Vigil, it is a Saturday Mass.

If you pray Vesper at 3:30, then you are praying Evening Prayer at the time that None is suppose to be prayed. 

If you pray the Divine Office any 'ol way you wish, in utter disregard for the liturgical law, then you will not be praying the Divine Office, and will not be "praying with the Church." Instead you will be using the Liturgy of the Hours as your personal devotional prayer and not as a Liturgy of the Church. Your "punishment" comes from God in the form of not receiving the benefits and graces that comes from praying the Divine Office properly.

If you insist on praying Vespers at 3:30 or earlier in such deliberate disregard for the Church's directives, then you are showing gross immaturity and rebellion. You might as well not pray the office at all if that is the case. Any grace you would have received, even in praying the office as a devotion instead of a liturgy, is cancelled out by your sin of arrogance and deliberate disobedience.

If one is not available to pray the hours at the appropriate time, then that hour is skipped. Thus, if you cannot pray Vespers at its appropriate time, but you are available to pray at 3:30, then pray the Office of None (mid-afternoon).

These issues are not rigid to anyone except those who think they know better than the Holy See. The Church asks us to pray the Offices at the time they are suppose to be prayed because each particular Office is designed for that particular time of day. Plus, the whole purpose of the Divine Office is to sanctify the hours of the day, which cannot be done unless the Office is prayed at the hours intended.

Such directives are not a problem for anyone who loves the Church and shows respect to her.

I am reminded of quotes by two Doctors of the Church:

"The more we see failure in obedience, the stronger should be our suspicion of temptation." —St. Teresa of Avila

"Lord, those are your best servants who wish to shape their life on Your answers rather than to shape your answers on their wishes." —St. Augustine

We need to be sentire cum ecclesia (thinking with the church), not thinking with our Pride and self-concerns that wishes.

Also see Faith Facts by Catholics United for the Faith.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary