How to Pray the Daily Office from the Book of Common Prayer
Part 1 – The Christian Year
Part 2 – Introducing the Book of Common Prayer
Part 3 – The Opening
Part 4 – The Psalms
Part 5 – The Readings
Part 6 – The Prayers
Part 7 – Making it Easy (in fact, brainless…)
Part 8 – Morning Prayer
Part 9 – The “Little” Offices (Midday and Compline)
Part 10 – Connecting with God and Feeling More Deeply when Praying the Office
Part 11 – Singing the Office
Part 11a – An Anglican Chant Tutorial
Part 12 – Adding Further Seasonal Variation
Resources to pray the Office:
For Starters (keeping it simple):
Daily Office from the BCP – printable booklet with the portions from the BCP that cover the main prayer services
Daily Office Lectionary – printable booklet with the schedule of all of the Scripture readings for the two-year schedule
Reading Booklets with full text readings from the Daily Office Lectionary
Schemes for Praying the Entire Psalter – schedule for singing the psalms either monthly, bi-monthly or weekly
Amazon link to the standard (cheapest) print version of the BCP in either red or black
More advanced material (for greater variation and celebration of the Church Year):
Adapted orders for the “Little Offices,” Midday Prayer and Compline (bed-time prayers) with strong seasonal emphases. These can either complement the offices of Morning and Evening Prayer, or could stand alone as a more simple way to pray (for example, upon waking and right before bed). Prayer During the Day is about a 10 to 15 minute prayer time, while Compline takes about five minutes or so.
Midday Prayer (Prayer During the Day) – booklet / standard
Seasonal “proper” booklet, largely gleaned from the unfortunately out-of-print Prayer Book Office seasonal emphasis to the flow of the Church Year. The “Proper” is the part of the liturgy which varies according to the day and/or season. These propers propose various hymns, psalms, canticles and antiphons for every Sunday of the year and for each feast - booklet / standard
Psalm Antiphons – “Antiphons” are short sentences of Scripture or traditional material that are used with Psalms or Canticles in order to give them a specific (often seasonal or Calendar-related) emphasis. To use them, they are simply prayed (sung) before and after the Psalm, or alternately as a refrain periodically throughout the Psalm, every few verses or so. I have compiled a set of seasonal antiphons from various sources (including the Prayer Book Office, the Catholic Liturgy of the Hours, the Roman Breviary and elsewhere) for the entire book of Psalms that can be used with the Psalms in your BCP or Bible. They are arranged by season – so throughout Advent, each psalm will use the antiphon labeled “Advent,” during the 12 days of Christmas, the antiphon labeled “Christmas,” during the entire season of Easter, the antiphon labeled “Easter,” etc. booklet / standard.
See Also:
Developing a Consistent Prayer Life
Opposition to Written Prayers Comes from the Spirit of the Age (Developing a Consistent Prayer Life Part 2)
My Personal Prayer Action Plan (Developing a Consistent Prayer Life Part 3)
Related posts
Comments
Comment from george
Time: December 28, 2009, 3:02 am
Hey Richard,
Just wanted to share the quote here, as I think the email spammed it, and i usually just erase those, sorry about that. but, wanted to comment on this blog, cause, i am really get more interested in this phase of the divine hours and its cousins as well…
thanks bro!
sevartha.
All of mankind have been made pure, holy and acceptable. This doesn’t mean we don’t get it wrong, it means that in each of us is the ability to get it right. And focusing on that is much more conduscive to forward motion. And it allows us to go out and find creative ways to meet the needs of those in the world. If we focus on ourselves, others miss out on what G-d could give them through us. This is where the message should be begin, not end. This is the message of sevartha. The gospel. The message of hope. The more we embrace this reality the more the world around us becomes more as it was intended to be. The gospel message says all people are free. Everyone. Right now. Now, I am not down-playing the need to be forgiven, or how destructive our actions can be but I am definitely trying to dismantle the focus on it. To move us forward. To encourage progress. The story of Jesus doesn’t end with our forgiveness, it starts there and invites us all to be a part of it. If this is all true then that would make everyone a new creation0 as Paul once said so eloquently. What is Paul saying here and why does it matter in this context? It’s important to first understand that the Greek language is quite sophisticated and at times even leaves verbs out of its sentence structure. This means that sometimes we have to go through the whole of the letter before we can get the full message. After doing that, a better rendering might be: “If anyone is in Christ — New Creation!” Another point of view is that the verb is the subject. So it might sound like this: «if anyone is in the messiah, the new creation has come! Richard Liantonio4 is an intercessory missionary and worship leader who explains it this way:
“… If this latter translation is correct – then ‘being in the Messiah’ is not simply an opportunity for a fresh start or a new chance to get things right (as great as that is). Being in Jesus means that one is a participant in the eschatological life of the restored and renewed heavens and earth even now. Some way and some how, through the Messiah, the G-d’s future for the world, where peace, justice, life and joy reigns, has come forward and burst forth in the present time. This is not a “spiritualization” of eschatology. Rather, understanding the radicality of New Testament thought is grasping that the apostles believed this time of literal, cosmic, physical, eschatological fulfillment, the full restoration of heaven and earth, though yet remaining future, has nevertheless dawned in “the now.” This restoration is already tasted by those who are ‘in the Messiah.’”
The word Paul is using here is ktisis ,it means the sum of all things created. He is playing on the creation narrative, which is a typical Jewish way of writing. They had the principal of first reference. (Anytime you heard a word being used in someone’s speech, it mostly likely alluded back to the first time it was used). The first time the word creation popped up was in Genesis. He is telling his audience that they have been fully restored to what G-d had intended. That we are no longer living in the Genesis 3 reality, but we are in Genesis 1 from that point onwards. Now, that is good news. It doesn’t mean we don’t need G-d, it means that our relationship with Him is more interactive, interdependent and less codependent. It is also a reminder that we are all connected to the whole of creation. And that through the life of Jesus all of creation is in the process of renewal and we get to be a part of it all by making beneficial decisions about how much electricity we use or how much food we waste or how much we choose to buy into consumerism. To be a new creation means we are living out this new identity in every way. But, you don’t always hear that in a sermon.
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Time: December 1, 2009, 4:40 am
[...] the Daily Office, or at least Morning or Evening Prayer. Full details on how to do so can be found here. The office can be prayed alone or in groups. Consider praying it daily on your own and at one set [...]