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

Compline – booklet /  standard

Seasonal “proper” booklet – largely gleaned from the unfortunately out-of-print Prayer Book Office. 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. These add further variation and richness by emphasizing the themes of each season.   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.

Psalms with Antiphons –  Part 1 (Psalms 1-55)   booklet /   standard

Part 2 (Psalms 56-104)   booklet /   standard

Part 3 (Psalms 105-150)   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)