Daily Office
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.
- http://anamcaragippsland.org/?page_id=91 provides many resources for praying the office. The web site itself has even more resources to guide the formation of a life of prayer.
- https://www.missionstclare.com/english/index.html#lect provides an easy to use and rich online source for praying the office.
- http://anglicanprayerbook.org.nz/ is an online version of The New Zealand Prayer Book that many of us have found helpful in fueling our daily prayer. There are many more resources, from Forward Movement to the Church of England.
Other Prayer Books
- Celtic Daily Prayer. Celtic Daily Prayer – from the Northumbria Community.
- Out of the Silence, Into the Silence – by Jim Cotter
- Benedictine Daily Prayer: A Short Breviary. Benedictine Daily Prayer – a shorter breviary.
- The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime: A Manual for Prayer. A contemporary book compiled by Phyllis Tickle. The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime and The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime are also available. They’re keyed to the Northern hemisphere, however.
- Sacred Space: The Prayer Book 2010
Websites
- Epray: https://www.epray.com.au – A website that allows subscription to access A Prayer Book for Australia (1995). This also includes the ability to download the Epray Daily Office app which has the daily offices and assigned lectionary readings.
- Daily Prayer: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/dailyprayer/ (Church of England – the liturgy, psalm and reading all rolled together in one webpage – great for saying in the office, or out on the road. However – it uses a different daily lectionary to Australia. This includes the BCP1662 and Common Worship forms of the liturgies.)
- Daily Prayer: http://www.missionstclare.com/english/ (Episcopal Church of the USA – the liturgy, psalm and reading all rolled together in one webpage – great for saying in the office, or out on the road. However – it uses a different daily lectionary to Australia.)
- Universalis: http://www.universalis.com/today.htm – the Liturgy of the Hours of the Roman Catholic Church (free – try this before you buy the very expensive set of books)
- Pray-as-you-Go: http://www.pray-as-you-go.org/ – a short daily office you can download and listen to on your computer or MP3 player. Also available through iTunes.
- Sacred Space – a short daily office aimed at Roman Catholic youth.
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