Daily Office

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My years as an undergraduate were spent in large measure in a quest for spiritual awakening. I suppose in someways I’ve never left that quest. An important waystation was the pursuit of the writings of TS Eliot. I was first made aware of him when one of my classmates in high school slipped me a copy of Eliot‘s "The Hollow Men". My whole life that classmate -- I can no longer even remember her name -- has been a mysterious and very significant figure for me, some thing like Dante's Beatrice. I later went on to memorize large quantities of Elliott's poetry, including the longer ones, and read most of his prose.

In the course of that, I encountered his major work, "The Four Quartets." Since then I have regarded that long poem as the greatest religious poem of at least the 20th century. In it I encountered a person by the name of Nicholas Ferrar.

And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.

Those words are from the fourth quartet, "Little Gidding." That is the village to which Ferrar retreated, leaving behind his very public life in London of the early 1600's. There he and his extended family lead a kind of monastic life. Continuous prayer was an important part of that life. Ferrar's life has been an important model and inspiration for me throughout my life. I’m not alone in that. In 2019 a group of Episcopalians formed The Society of St. Nicholas Ferrar, "dedicated to practicing and promoting the Daily Office." Their web site, https://stnicholasferrar.wordpress.com/about/, has a helpful and succinct guide in how to pray the Daily Office from The Book of Common Prayer.

From the time I learned of it, the dedication of some at Saint Paul's to praying the daily office has been one of the things I find remarkable about this community of faith, this outpost of the Jesus movement.

As we begin a measured return to "normal life", one of the things I intend to do is to encourage our practice of daily prayer according to the daily office. Below are some resources you might find helpful.

Other Prayer Books

Websites

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