On the Road to Emmaus » Book of Common Prayer

Why Use Written Prayers? (A series explaining the logic and reasons behind Christian liturgy and worship)

Richard — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 05:11:03 +0000

Among Evangelical and Charismatic Christians, reactions to liturgical aspects of worship and prayer vary greatly from intrigue, to delight, to bewilderment, to straight up scoffing. This series will attempt to explain some of the reasons behind liturgical prayer aimed at people with little or no (positive) experience with it, though ideally it will also be an encouragement to those already versed in such tradition. I will give lists of reasons for various aspects with (hopefully) brief explanations. Today we’ll look at written prayers, pre-written prayers that is. Many people have a hard time seeing why someone would ever want to repeat pre-written prayers as a part or even a significant part of one’s devotional life. Here’s a few thoughts, though by no means exhaustive:

1) They teach us how to pray – most people learned to write by copying letters printed in a book, or even tracing over them. We learned math by repeating “times tables” over and over until they were automatic. Using written prayers works in the same way. We “trace over” the prayers of the Saints, and over time, they become a part of us.

2) They “prime the pump” – written prayers solve the dilemma of what to say while praying. Instead staring off into space or daydreaming during our prayer time, we can “prime the pump” using written prayers to get us started.

3) They remind us what “we ought to pray” – when left to our own devices we could easily pray only for that which immediately concerns us, kind of like a “tyranny of the urgent,” only in prayer. As C.S. Lewis says, “The crisis of the present moment will always loom largest. Isn’t there a danger that our great, permanent, objective necessities—often more important—may get crowded out?”

4) They infuse our prayer life with rich biblical and theological content – My own spontaneous prayer can only possibly be filled with whatever biblical content I have in retrievable memory and am able to string together into coherent sentences on the fly. On my own, lets count on that being rather limited and as C.S. Lewis remarked, in danger of quickly dispersing into “wide and shallow puddles.” Written prayers make instantly accessible a rich depth of content in prayer without requiring the least bit of ingenuity on my part.

5) They connect us to the wider church, both geographically and historically – I can pray in unity with believers all over the world and throughout history by praying the same words with them.

6) They are time-tested – of course not all are, but many written prayers in historic liturgies are over a thousand years old. These have stuck around for reasons that are well worth exploring.

7) They are short and stay focused – this helps people engage with them over against the rambling or “stream-of-consciousness” praying that so often occurs when one person prays for a long time. So many topics are covered in no organized or coherent fashion that it is nearly impossible to stay connected. The other people attempting to pray often zone out because they can’t keep track of what is going on. Written prayers are shorter and to the point. They are unified around a coherent theme and with a specific objective. This helps either an individual or a group connect and agree with them.

8 ) They spare us from narcissism (i.e., idolatrous idiosyncrasy) – we naturally gravitate around our pet doctrines, ideas, passions, and concerns. We are certainly entitled to them. However, when we only entertain and accept our own premises, we are moving into dangerous ground. If prayer only bears the mark of my uniqueness, it may keep me locked up in the bubble of that same uniqueness. Written prayers call us out beyond the confines of our limited understanding and perspective, to a participation in the thoughts, issues and concerns of the wider church.

9) They are easy and accessible – no spiritual acumen is needed, no special experience, talents, gifts, anointings, or education, simply the ability to read. You can be a complete novice in prayer, or a veteran believer who is overwhelmed with frustration concerning their prayer life, and instantly access an incredibly rich prayer life. Written prayers are for everyone and accessible immediately.

10) They are unifying – Because they are so easy and accessible, they can be immediately unifying for people of all different “levels” in experience of prayer. Everyone is on an equal playing field. There are no “prayer experts” who must lead the way as the “novices” sit in befuddled silence. All engage, all participate, all are one.

11) They help us relax – It is remarkable how much anxiety people have about what and how they pray and worship, especially in public. With written prayers, all you have to do is say the words that are already given to you, with no other expectations. In other words you can spend less time worrying about what you are going to say, what other people are going to think about it, how to have a really good prayer, etc., and focus your energy on actually praying and connecting with God.

12) They teach us grace – this is ironic considering the frequent accusations of written prayers being stiff and “religious.” Written prayers teach us that prayer is about God and not about our effort. Many people try so hard to have a prayer life and feel so defeated. The Church’s treasury of written and liturgical prayer is one of God’s greatest gifts to us. It is sheer grace that we can have such an easy entry-point into prayer of unspeakable wealth and depth. Thus prayer is not so much about how disciplined, spiritual, discerning, passionate, contemplative, etc. we are – it is about God’s grace freely given to us who are in such desperate need.

I think in conclusion it is more than appropriate to end with a prayer from the Book of Common Prayer:

Almighty God, who pours out on all who desire it the spirit of grace and of supplication: Deliver us, when we draw near to you, from coldness of heart and wanderings of mind, that with steadfast thoughts and kindled affections we may worship you in spirit and in truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Developing a Consistent Prayer Life

Richard — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 07:37:08 +0000

My apologies – I meant to say, “how to develop an easy, consistent, diverse, deep, rich in content, broadly-biblical, non-idiosyncratic, Christ-centered, historically-rooted, well-rounded, manageable and profoundly moving prayer life,” but thought that title was at the same time unwieldy and immediately open to the charge of being outside the realm of possibility for the majority of normal Christians. Furthermore, if I said all those objectives (minus the “profoundly moving” part – that’s a little more involved) were achievable in less than a week’s time, I would fear my credibility to be even more so depreciated. Thus, the title to this post should be “How to establish an easy, consistent, diverse, deep, rich in content, broadly-biblical, non-idiosyncratic, Christ-centered, historically-rooted, well-rounded, manageable and profoundly moving prayer life in less than one week** (**although the deeply moving may take some more time),” but for now, we’ll settle with the title “as-is.”

I’ve been heavily involved in the Prayer Movement for about 10 years and have worked at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City full-time for over five years, where our central (though not only) focus as a ministry is spending lots of time in prayer (we host prayer meetings 24/7 with attendance that never drops below 100), and equipping others to do the same. Yet I find it remarkable (though not really — I’ll explain why shortly), how frequently I talk to people here who do not pray that much. Yes, they read Christian books. Yes, they open the Bible periodically. Yes, they sing songs, sometimes with exuberance. Yes, they listen to sermons. Yes, they exhort others with reference to the value of prayer. But actually pray?

The surprising frequency with which people actually do not pray at a ministry devoted to prayer is not a phenomenon unique to us by any stretch of the imagination. If you’ve ever attempted to have a prayer life, you know what I’m talking about. You get a certain level of determination to pray and so decide to set aside 15, 30 minutes, maybe even an hour or two each day to pray. The first two minutes go great. You announce your noble intentions to be dedicated to God, thank him for all his mercies and ask him to strengthen you in your daily tasks. Then about twenty minutes later you shake yourself into cognizance realizing that the previous segment of time had been spent either sleeping, day dreaming, planning the rest of your day, worrying about this or that situation, thinking about what you’ll say to that last person who bugged/hurt/angered you, dusting the underside of your desk, or some combination of these. Then you spend the next minute or two apologizing to God or being frustrated with yourself, only 25 minutes later to repeat the same process. Oh Sweet Hour of Prayer!! Sweet indeed! Well…God thought it was endearing, but to the pray-er it was infuriating, demoralizing or both. Oh, by the way, I read about this in book.

Would it be a shock if I told you that today this is rarely my experience (I say rarely, not never)? Not only is this rarely my experience, but this ceased being my regular experience shortly after learning a very simple lesson. This lamentable scenario plays itself out over and over again in the lives of sincere and eager-hearted Christians largely (not only) because they come into the time of prayer with a very significant yet unspoken assumption. Wouldn’t you love to know what that is?

Before I get to that, I want to outline the above criteria. In seeking to cultivate my own practice of prayer, I’ve sought to find a method of prayer by which all of these characteristics can be true. I am maintaining this interlude because I want to subsequently show how my simple lesson enabled me to achieve all of these objectives rather quickly.

easy – the execution of this method cannot be excruciatingly laborious and constantly require all my mental, affective and bodily reserves. This would be impossible to maintain.

consistent - It must be sustainable. I would have to be able to do this method day in and day out – on good days and bad. My central method of prayer should not require or expect me to be in top form all of the time.

deep – in the name of being “easy,” it cannot overlook significantly important issues, questions, concerns, etc.. It has to address and speak to me at the level of my deep heart. Accessibility cannot be a ruse for what is in actual fact, shallow.

rich in content – this also would be an attempt to avoid the shallow – but now in terms of theological depth. This is rooted in the conviction that ultimately, it is true content about God and His world that moves the heart. Emotional experiences without content are shallow at best and fake at worse.

diverse – it would need to draw in many different topics, ideas, themes, emotions, modalities, etc. It can’t be the same every day – because 1) God is diverse 2) Scripture is diverse and 3) monotony is very challenging for me.

well-rounded – I want my prayer life not simply to be diverse, but to be intentionally diverse – over time being thorough in scope, reach and coverage – to provide for me a balanced spiritual diet on a regular basis.

broadly-biblical – biblical verses are important but not enough to make something “biblical.” A concept can employ many “verses” in its defense but in fact be “unbiblical” if it uses those verses in a way that is incompatible with or unfaithful to the larger narrative of Scripture. I want my practice of prayer to draw from from the breadth of Scripture in a way that the overarching drama Scripture is telling gets formed into my life over time.

Christ-centered – prayer fundamentally not anxiously fixated on problems or issues, but confidently centered on the redemptive acts of God in Christ – incarnation, life and ministry, death, resurrection, ascension, outpouring of the Holy Spirit and second coming.

non-idiosyncratic – I refuse to center my prayer life around my small collection of favorite verses, passages, ideas, pet-doctrines, etc. Of course I can have and cherish those, but my spiritually would become narrow-minded and limited if it only bore the marks of my “uniqueness.” Furthermore it would stink of individualism and and a pride insisting only I know and have the best way.

historically-rooted – it seems that the best way to avoid idiosyncrasy would be to draw on the riches of Christian and Jewish history. This would give me a “rooted-ness” that avoids forming my devotional practice on the basis of the “spirit of the age” even if I think somehow it hasn’t affected our modern forms of Christianity (it has – it’s inescapable…

manageable – the method of prayer would need to incorporate all of the above in way that I am not trying to swallow the entire depth, content, diversity and history of Biblical and Apostolic Christianity all at once. It must be capable of consumption in digestible pieces.

profoundly moving – of course my method of prayer must lead me to encounter God on a somewhat regular basis. Now, I am not one for the “myth of constant communion” where one feels the presence of God without ceasing, either throughout all of life, or even throughout an entire prayer time. It would be best if we put that myth to rest because while it is inspiring to a few people, it is utterly demoralizing to the other 98% of normal believers who have actually tried prayer. Nevertheless, I make it my objective to deeply connect to God on the heart level every day. Ultimately, if I am unmoved by all my ideas – I don’t actually believe them. So my method of prayer must serve this function of bringing me into deeper affective awareness of God’s heart for me and deeper expression of my heart to God.

Well…now that I’ve laid out all my criteria for a method of prayer I have been seeking, prospects for such a method may seem quite dismal (especially considering EASY and MANAGEABLE are amongst the criteria). However, I am happy to say that I have found a method that incorporates all of these criteria. The best part is that I didn’t make it up at all – I found it fully functioning and happily satisfying all of my criteria without my ingenuity.

I’ll talk about this more in an upcoming post, but for now I want to get back to that important yet unspoken assumption that many, many contemporary believers bring with them into their times of prayer that often renders their “Sweet Hour of Prayer” as, well, woefully lackluster. Interestingly enough, it is not an assumption that most Christians throughout history have shared. This assumption is that when praying, the words I say, will for the most part (or entirely), be drawn from my own inner spontaneous creativity. In other words, when I pray, I just close my eyes, start talking and expect to keep going for an hour (or more!) with an unceasing flow of inspiration and corresponding cascade of eloquent and moving language. How often does this actually happen? Why do we insist on believing that it will happen anytime soon? Why do we narcissistically maintain our illusion of feigned spiritual prowess and neurotically refuse to believe that we are all in fact novices in the school of prayer?

The opposite approach would be to use pre-written prayers as an aid to your own prayer. This could range from have a pre-written framework from which to add extemporaneous interjections to simply repeating the words of a prayer written by someone else. This one simple switch of mindset (that I don’t have to pull all the words I pray out of nowhere every time I pray) is essentially the key which enabled me to fulfill all of the above criteria in my prayer life. Evidently, simply using pre-written prayers and structures of prayer by itself did not enable this, but it was the key that unlocked the door. I’ll explain more on how this worked for me in subsequent posts. Now, this may be a little anti-climactic if you were hoping for a really great secret. The incredible thing is that this is not a secret at all – the majority of prayer meetings and prayer movements throughout Church history have employed pre-written prayers and prayer (liturgical) frameworks as the bedrock upon which their prayer lives were based. It is almost too easy of a solution.

I understand that there are significant objections to using pre-written prayers and I will address those in my next post. For now I simply want to lay out my initial criteria and show how they are impossible or exceedingly difficult to satisfy using the “pray only from my spontaneous internal creative resources” method.

easy – it is easy in the sense that you don’t have to plan or prepare. Try doing it for a while for extended periods of time and you will soon know it is not easy. It is really hard to come up with fresh language to pray for hours on end, day after day.

consistent - as C.S. Lewis has aptly noted, espousing this approach to prayer requires you to be on top form all the time. It commits the error of assuming that you can do all of the time what you can only do some of the time.

deep – as will be a common thread though many of these criteria – if prayer is only spontaneous, your prayer will essentially be drawn from what you already brought in with you. So…the depth of your prayer will correspond to the depth you already had – that’ll work for the veterans, but good luck for the neophytes!

rich in content – as with above, the content you already had and can spontaneously form into semi-coherent phrases will determine the content of your prayer. This does not bode well for those without 20 years of experience in prayer and the Word.

diverse – ironic as it seems, when prayer is only spontaneous, it often is lacking in diversity. This is because we tend to “spontaneously” gravitate to what is familiar and comfortable to us. Hence our “spontaneity” will only be what we already know and will be limited to our familiar (and predictable) ideas and patterns. Only by great effort does spontaneity actually sustain diversity (violating criteria #1 – EASY and #2 – CONSISTENT).

broadly-biblical – there is no way to ensure that an entirely spontaneous method of prayer will root you in a broad approach to Scripture. Rather the snippets of Scripture you have memorized will find expression in a spontaneously haphazard fashion.

Christ-centered – if the redemptive acts of God in Christ are central to everything you think about then this one will be easy. If you are like most of us and are attempting against many counter currents to form your life in a Christ-centered way, this one will be difficult on your own.

non-idiosyncratic – The very essence of spontaneity is that it is idiosyncratic. This is its main strength and weakness. Expressing yourself is valuable, but in exclusion is severely limited and bordering on narcissistic.

historically-rooted – once again, if you are already profoundly rooted in historic and apostolic Christianity, this one will be a snap (maybe). However, if you are still in the journey of prayer, considering yourself to not yet have arrived, there is no way this will happen on its own.

well-rounded – idiosyncratic prayer seems to necessarily lack being well-rounded.

manageable – perhaps it is manageable – however, I don’t consider the void of all the previous elements to be manageable. I find it depressing.

profoundly moving – I think we’ve already established that a solely spontaneous approach to prayer often yields mediocre results as described above. I find it odd that one of the central objections to using written forms in prayer is the accusation that they are dry and dull. This is a most ironic accusation, considering how awful the experience is of most Christians’ spontaneous attempts at prayer. In fact, it is such a ridiculous assertion that I will not even address it in my next post, in which I will deal with a more formidable objection to written prayers.

Well – I don’t want to end on a down note – so I’ll finish by saying that if you find yourself in the experience of prayer which spends exponentially more time staring at the wall and thinking about other things than actually praying, or perhaps you’ve had that experience and just gave up assuming that it wouldn’t work – there actually is another way – and it actually works – and it actually has been practiced by the majority of praying Christians throughout Church history, especially those who have dedicated their lives to prayer. If you are an expert in prayer, feel no need to continue listening to me. But if you have been longing for “help” in prayer (cf. Rom. 8:28) and have been asking God to “teach you how to pray,” there is help available. Much help. And it is remarkably more easy than you might think. More on this to come.

Practical Suggestions for Celebrating the Church Year

Richard — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:14:08 +0000

If you’re like me, celebrating Advent may conjure up childhood memories of those peculiar “Advent Calendars” where you pop out a piece of chocolate each day as Christmas nears. Suffice to say, not all approaches to celebrating the Church Year are equally inspiring. Nevertheless, as I have come to seriously celebrate the Church Year, it has been one of the most compelling, inspiring and moving aspects of my spiritual life, both individual and communally.

As I have given an albeit brief explanation of the Church Year (I’ll use the terms “Church Calendar”, “Church Year” and “Christian Year” essentially interchangeably) elsewhere, I would like here to turn to practical suggestions on how to implement anywhere from a relatively simple to a full dress commemoration of the Church Year. My suggestions will be concerned with marking the primary seasons and principal feasts of the Church Year because there are many other commemorations which we need not get bogged down with at this point.

I should further note, that when I speak of “celebrating the Church Year,” I am mostly referring to means by which the formative themes of each Season and Feast can be shaped into our lives. In other words, I am primarily discussing the Church Year as spiritual formation and spiritual discipline. I am sure there is lots of advice that could be given for holiday-coordinated decorating, baking, party ideas, etc. I am not concerned with that here (though by all means – bring on the baked goods!!). The advice which follows centers on how our spiritual lives can be given definitive shape through the Church Year, and thus formed around and transformed by the unfolding story of God’s redemptive acts in and through the Messiah. It follows that my suggestions will generally draw from the Church’s liturgical tradition, which has always centered around the Church Year, and has developed quite a wealth of material over the centuries. Additionally, the suggestions which follow are not specific to Advent or any one season, but are general in nature, applicable to all seasons of the Year.

I will also attempt to make each suggestion applicable for both individual and communal use.

1) Determine to follow the Church Year through to the end. This of course hardly seems like a practical suggestion for my first point. However, I would like to begin by advising a long term though strategy rather than short term. The power of the Church Year is in the entire sequence of Advent through Pentecost and commemorating the entire sequence of the central redemptive acts of God in the Messiah. So while “celebrating Advent” or “keeping Lent” can’t hurt, the full power of the Church Year is its unity, rather than parts in abstraction. Its further power is the cumulative effect of celebrating the entire cycle over a course of years such that the redemptive acts of God in the Messiah become the central overarching rhythm of our lives.

2) Follow the Readings in the Daily Office Lectionary (from the Book of Common Prayer). The lectionary has one OT reading, one NT epistle and one Gospel reading for each day. They generally follow entire books is sequence that have themes corresponding to the Church Year. Use them in your personal Bible reading or meditation times. They are generally short (10-12 verses) and could form the basis of prayer-reading (lectio-divina). Read them with others and discuss them. Discuss a whole weeks worth of readings and reflection with others once per week. I have made Daily Office Readings booklets by compiling the assigned texts for each season. They can be downloaded here. Alternately you can download just the Daily Office Lectionary and look up the passages in your own Bible - booklet / standard.

3) Sing hymns and songs that correspond to the season. Contrary to popular belief, Advent songs and Christmas songs are not the same. Christmas songs/carols are sung during the twelve days of Christmas. Advent songs and carols are sung during Advent. Hymnals of churches that don’t keep the Christian year may not make this distinction. However, if you pick up a hymnal from a more liturgical tradition, such as Anglican, Lutheran or Catholic, there will be a wealth of material for each season. Should you not happen to know many of the hymns, do a search on the internet and you can often find at least midi files that will play the song for you so you can learn it. Check out these sites for starters: http://hymnal.oremus.org; http://www.smallchurchmusic.com; http://hymntime.com/tch/

4) Pray the Book of Common Prayer “Collect” for each week. “Collect” is a fancy word for a prayer which frequently draws together (“collects”) themes of a given season or day in the Church Calendar. Use it daily either upon waking or before going to bed. Pray it with others before a meal. Pray it for people on your prayer list. For the Collects of the Church Year click here.

5) Pray/Sing the Psalms on a monthly (or bi-monthly) schedule using seasonal 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 psalms 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.

Seasonal Psalm Antiphon download links: booklet / standard.

Click here to download the monthly Psalm schedule.

6) Use a seasonal order for Midday Prayer or Compline (night-time prayer before bed). These are orders for prayer that are more simple than those for Morning and Evening Prayer. They are self-contained and require no flipping back and forth through different places in the prayer book. Unfortunately, the BCP orders for Midday Prayer and Compline have almost no seasonal variation, so I have borrowed from the liturgy of the Church of England and elsewhere to form these adaptations of the BCP orders with strong seasonal emphasis. These work well prayed alone or in groups. Download links:

Midday Prayer booklet – booklet / standard

Compline – booklet / standard

7) Begin praying 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 time per week with others. I pray the Office daily on my own and once a week do a full sung Morning Prayer with some friends before the Sunday morning Eucharist.

8 ) If you already have been praying the Daily Office, consider using seasonal propers that add further 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. A seasonal propers booklet, largely gleaned from the unfortunately out-of-print Prayer Book Office can be downloaded here - booklet / standard

9) The Church of England has produced a book available on-line as a series of pamphlets titled “Times and Seasons” with various material for each season which could be used either as part of the Daily Office, or in other ways. They can be downloaded for free here.

10) Begin visiting a liturgical Church in the “catholic” tradition (i.e., Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Anglican), which follows the Church Year and incorporates its emphases into the liturgy. A directory of orthodox Anglican churches in North America can be found here. If not on a weekly basis, perhaps attend for special services throughout the year, like Christmas Eve, Epiphany, Good Friday, Easter Vigil, etc.

11) Organize a gathering of friends and family on either the day of or the eve of major feasts for a simple meal and an order for Evening Prayer, using seasonal material from some of the previous suggestions.

12) Pick up a copy of Robert Webber’s book “Ancient-Future Time.” It discusses each season and principle feast of the Church Year, highlighting the various themes for each.

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** Photo credit: tome213

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How to Pray the Daily Office from the Book of Common Prayer (Part 8) – Morning Prayer

Richard — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 04:08:14 +0000

After having gone through the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) order for Evening Prayer in some detail, I will now show some of the unique aspects of Morning Prayer. Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer are very similar. They both have the same four part general structure I outlined previously:

1) The Opening

2) The Psalms

3) The Readings

4) The Prayers

In fact, Parts 2 and 3 (the most lengthy parts of the Office) are nearly identical in each order.

The first difference is at the beginning. While Evening Prayer has Opening Sentences that correspond to the time of day (evening), Morning Prayer uses Opening Sentences that correspond to the season of the Church Year. This helps set the themes of that season in your mind from the very beginning of the prayer time.

The next difference is in the Opening Versicles, which here are taken from Psalm 51:15, rather than from Psalm 70:1 in Evening Prayer.

Probably the biggest difference between Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer is the hymn that follows the Opening Versicles. Evening Prayer uses the ancient Greek hymn, Phos Hilaron (O Gracious Light). Morning Prayer uses what is called an Invitatory Psalm. They are called such because the texts of the Psalms used literally “invite” the people to praise the Lord (Come, let us sing to the Lord; Be joyful in God all you lands, etc.). It serves as a “call to worship” of sorts.

The Invitatory Psalms in the BCP are Psalm 95 and Psalm 100.

The Invitatory Psalms use what are called Antiphons. Antiphons are short sentences, usually from or derived from Scripture, which are sung with a Psalm or canticle, either before and after it or as a refrain in between verses. The antiphon used with the Invitatory Psalm corresponds with the season or day in the Church Year.

Each time there is a paragraph break in the Psalm, the antiphon may be repeated as a refrain.

The Psalms in Morning Prayer are done exactly in the same manner as in Evening Prayer.

Likewise, the Readings are done in the same way, with the exception that the Suggested Canticles are different.

Suffrages set B is different than in Evening Prayer, but still works the same way.

Also, the Collects are different.

That’s it! Basically, Morning Prayer works exactly the same as Evening Prayer, just with the few differences outlined above.

How to Pray the Daily Office from the Book of Common Prayer (Part 7) – Making it Easy (in fact, brainless…)

Richard — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:13:31 +0000

If you’ve been following along this series (or learned to pray the BCP Office by other means), after an attempt or two (or perhaps just upon hearing), it may seem daunting with all the flipping of pages and navigating through the book to find the appropriate material for each section. It may seem far from easy to flip all over the place between the Psalms, the Lectionary, the Collects, the Prayers, etc, never-mind keeping track of where you are from day to day . If you are thinking such – I agree with you! But there is a real simple way to make all of this super easy – in fact brainless. By implementing a simple system you will never get lost navigating around the Prayer Book. Better yet, once you implement this system, you will never even need to keep track of where you are in the Psalms, Lectionary, etc. It will all be ready for you with no thought beforehand. I often tell people that I know exactly what I’m going to pray that night (and every night for that matter) when I head to the Prayer Room at IHOP. That statement however is not entirely true. In fact, I have very little idea of what I am going to pray, I just know I am going to pray the Office and I have a simple system, with which I never have to think about what I’m going to pray – it is all ready for me every night.

Essentially, all we will be doing is putting ribbon book marks in your BCP to keep your places in the various sections of the Prayer Book. Implementing this system will entail a little bit of crafting, which I will now outline in detail.

This is my prayer book. It actually came with ribbons sewn into the binding. But I happen to be a ribbon-aholic. Once I found out how to add ribbon book marks to my BCP – I started adding them to all of my books. This Prayer Book happens to be a BCP and Hymnal combination, thus there is need for a LOT of ribbons. So I am adding more.

You will need to get your hands on ribbon like this – a different color for every bookmark you will need (or you will never be able to tell them apart!). You can get these for around 50-75 cents a spool at Wal-mart or Jo-Ann Fabrics.

Then get a 3 x 5 file card, fold it in half lengthwise and cut it down the middle. This card will get inserted into the little space between where the binding is sewn and the outside of the spine of the book. If you have a thin book, you may need to cut the card down to make it narrower.

To cut the ribbon, open your prayer book and lay the edge of the ribbon about an inch past the top in the middle of the book (as shown in the picture). Then extend it diagonally across the page 2-3 inches past the corner. Definitely make the ribbon longer than shorter – you can always cut them down later. It is important that you measure them across the page diagonally because if they are too short, you won’t be able to use them to turn pages.

Next, tape or glue the ribbons to the top of the file card. Make sure they are secure or they will rip off when you are using them. If you have a bunch of ribbons you may need to overlap them slightly.

Then insert the card between where the pages are sewn together and the outside of the spine — and you are done!

Now you can set your page markers. I recommend placing a ribbon in the following places:

Minimally:

-Orders for Daily Prayer (75ff.)
-Weekly Seasonal Collect (211ff.)
-Psalms (585ff.)
-Lectionary (936ff.)

My Ideal:

-Orders for Daily Prayer (75ff.)
-Canticles in Morning Prayer – for use during Morning and Evening Prayer (85ff.)
-Great Litany (148) (especially during Lent)
-Weekly Season Collect (211ff.)
-Holy Days Collects (237ff.)
-Psalms (585ff.)
-Prayers (810ff.)
-Lectionary (936ff.) – unless of course you use my Readings Booklets!

It is easiest to use the ribbon itself to turn the pages. Just grab the bottom of the ribbon, drag it around the book just past the bottom corner and then pull the book open using the ribbon. This is what makes using the ribbons superior to using standard book marks (plus they don’t fall out and get lost). As you move forward in the Psalms, Canticles, etc., just move the ribbon forward as you go to keep your place.

At the beginning I suggest taking another 3 x 5 card and write down which colors are for which section. Keeping your color-scheme consistent will make it easier over the long-term. Then stick the card in the cover of your Prayer Book so for the first while you can have it to help you remember which ribbon marks where. In a few weeks you won’t need the card any more – you’ll get the hang of it real soon.

How to Pray the Daily Office from the Book of Common Prayer (Part 6) – The Prayers

Richard — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:57:03 +0000

How often have you sat down to pray and have not known what to say? You may even care deeply about a specific topic, but after sixty to ninety seconds your creativity has run its course and you find yourself spending more energy and thought on determining what to say than actually relating to God. The expectation of such unimpeded flowing inspiration must be corrected by a practical realism if we indeed value prayer and believe it to be fundamentally efficacious. Few people have the ability continue long lengths of time in prayer out of their own spontaneous internal resources. Your own experience likely testifies to this. Yet if we believe prayer actually does something (a matter to which I’ll subsequently return), as in, whether one prays or stares blankly at the wall is more than a matter of having a good time or not, but rather makes a real difference in the lives of others – this is an issue we cannot avoid.

Apparently, this post is part of a series explaining how to use written prayers and structures as an aid in prayer. Many of my comments thus far have related to the irony of how a 100% spontaneous approach to prayer can be frustrating and dull while a structured prayer life can be much more dynamic. Ultimately however, we are not simply discussing how to have a better “quiet time.” If we truly believe prayer mysteriously affects the possible outcomes the future holds for real people’s lives, the issue of whether we are spending our prayer time staring at the wall, day-dreaming, thinking up what to say, or actually praying is of urgent importance.

If using written and structured prayer, such as that in the Daily Office, helps us to have a more focused and consistent, and thus enjoyable prayer life, it also means that we are making more of a difference in changing our world through prayer. This is far from incidental, because of we believe our Lord’s words concerning the efficacy of prayer, we are speaking concerning matters of life and death.

Before describing the final “Prayers” section of the Office, I’ll share one technique I’ve used in approaching this section that I’ve found helpful. For each day of the week I have specific “intentions,” a specific target for my prayers, which I carry through the entire Office, including the Psalms, Readings and Prayers. Many of the prayers in the Psalms and in the Office are intentionally general. Each day, I will focus these more general prayers on specific targets. For example, on Sunday, I focus on praying for my church. On Monday I pray for my students, on Tuesday I pray for the nations of Uganda and Rwanda, on Wednesday I pray for my family, and so forth.

After the first three sections of the Office, the Opening, the Psalms and the Readings, the Prayers begin on page 121.

When praying the Office by yourself, you can omit greetings and responses like this one.

The Lord’s Prayer is obviously the central Christian prayer, being given to us directly by Jesus himself.

Suffrages are responsive prayers. When praying individually, you will pray all the lines, but when praying with others they are said or sung antiphonally between a leader and the others assembled. One or both of the sets of suffrages can be used.

Suffrage set A draws its lines from various Psalms and includes prayer for the Church, nation and the world.

Suffrage set B is based on a litany for the sanctification of our life from the Eastern Orthodox liturgy, which dates back to the fourth century.

Here opportunity is given to commemorate a specific saint and remember those shining lights who have gone before as examples for us. If you don’t want to do that, just say “in the communion of all your saints”

A Collect is a short prayer, often one that is assigned to a specific day or season in the Christian Year.

The Collect of the Day is that which corresponds to the given week in the Church Year. The Collect for a given week in the Calendar is used every day during that week, beginning either on Sunday morning, or the evening before that Sunday.

The Collects for each week (and major holidays) are found beginning on Page 211. They are arranged chronologically beginning with Advent. Prayers for Holy Days on fixed dates (rather than according to the Seasons) begin on Page 237.

They are listed as “Contemporary” because the BCP provides duplicate prayers in both traditional (i.e., “King James”) and contemporary English.

Additionally, when I’m wanting a longer prayer time, I may also pray all of the Collects for a given Season. For example, if it was Advent, there is one Collect for each of the four weeks of Advent. On a given night in Advent, I may pray all four collects.

Additional prayers are given within the Order for Evening Prayer on the next three pages (pp. 123-5). Any or all of them can be used each evening.

You may be thinking that using just these ten fixed prayers (plus the variable Collect of the Day) may be limiting. If you find that to be the case, there are seventy additional prayers starting on Page 810, which cover a wide variety of topics. This page shows the beginning of the Table of Contents, to give a sampling of the topics included.

Another source within the Prayer Book for a more expanded time of intercession is The Great Litany. Published in 1544 and included in the 1549 BCP, The Great Litany, was first piece of liturgy ever composed in English. The current version is almost identical to that version, save a few minor changes. It is an urgent plea for God’s mercy over a wide range of topics. It generally takes 10-15 minutes to pray through in its entirety.

A further way times of prayer and intercession using the BCP can be expanded is to use each phrase in a Suffrage or the Litany, or each collect as a “bidding,” to which you would add 30-90 seconds of spontaneous prayer related to that theme or topic, possibly mentioning specific people or situations that relate. As soon as you don’t easily have something additional to pray on that theme, move on to the next phrase.

Any of these extra prayers or the Litany can be said here, where the rubric says “authorized intercessions and thanksgivings may follow.”

Other options at this point would include

–using prayers that you personally have written

–praying prayers from Scripture

–using prayers from other books

–following a prayer list

–free intercession

The Office begins to wrap up with a concluding prayer of thanksgiving, within which you can pause and mention specific items from the day you are thankful for.

After one more optional concluding prayer, comes the ancient closing versicle and response, “Let us Bless the Lord // Thanks be to God” and the Office is done!

How to Pray the Daily Office from the Book of Common Prayer (Part 5) – The Readings

Richard — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 19:58:11 +0000

The Word of God does not simply give us information about religious truths. Rather the Word of God is the central medium through which we come to know and experience God (cf. Lk. 24:32). It is furthermore the central agency through which God accomplishes justice on earth in and through his people (cf. Isa. 55:7-13). The Word of God is unmistakably worthy of being thoroughly and ardently heard, read, marked, learned, inwardly digested and passionately “incarnated” through our lives. The “Readings” portion of the Daily Office from the Book of Common Prayer is one way in which this can happen in the life of a believer.

I am continuing today in my series in guiding you step-by-step in how to pray the Daily Office from the Book of Common Prayer. To review, the Daily Office from the BCP has four main sections, two of which we have already covered:

1) The Opening

2) The Psalms

3) The Readings

4) The Prayers

This page should look familiar from last time. We’ve already covered the Phos Hilaron and the Psalms.

Now we turn our attention to what is listed as “The Lessons.” This means a passage from the Bible (or other Christian literature) which is read out loud in a service. If you are praying the Office by yourself, you can read it silently or aloud.

While of course, every time Scripture is read, we garner new information, it is good to remember that this is first and foremost a time of prayer. I like to think of the Readings as mostly a time to hear from God. Studying the Bible is great, but that is done at a different time. Here, we primarily allow the Spirit of God to address us and speak to us through the Scripture Reading.

We saw this page briefly during the last section on the Psalms. It is a page from the Daily Office Lectionary. A Lectionary is a list of portions of the Bible to be read at appointed times, according to the Church Calendar. The Daily Office Lectionary lists the readings for the Daily Office as there is a different lectionary for use during the Eucharist.

It is arranged according to a two year cycle. Year One begins at Advent before an odd numbered year and Year Two begins at Advent before an even numbered year. The current year (2009) is Year One and began last December. This December we will move into Year Two.

During the two year cycle most of the Old Testament is read and the entire New Testament is covered each year.

Since the Church Calendar (for the most part) does not have fixed dates, neither does the Lectionary. This necessitates that you know where we are in the Christian Year (check here for some guidance).

Three readings are listed for each day, one from the OT, one from the NT epistles and one from the Gospels. The rubrics mention that one or two lessons are read at Morning and Evening Prayer, but all of them may be read at one office. It is intended that all three are read each day, no matter how they are split up. Additionally, the OT lesson from the alternate year may be used for an additional OT lesson, if an OT lesson is desired at each office, or if you just want more readings in one office. In a section called “Additional Directions” (p. 142), rubrics explain that a reading from “non-biblical Christian literature” may follow the Scripture readings. Traditionally, the Daily Office contained readings from Christian writers in the earliest centuries of the Church.

I personally enjoy the practice of reading from each major section of the Bible every day. Even if in my study times I am focused in one area, it keeps me grounded in in regular direct contact with the words of Jesus, the apostles and the OT narrative. It also gets me reading passages of Scripture I wouldn’t necessarily gravitate towards, or haven’t ever been on my study plans.

To make completing the Readings section of the Office easier, I’ve developed a resource with all the readings for a given day collected together to be printed out in a booklet. Click here to download them.

The rubrics here explain that silence may be kept after each Reading. I like to use this time to offer a simple spontaneous prayer in response to the passage, usually along the lines of 1) thanking God for something mentioned in the text; 2) asking him to give me deeper revelation of something mentioned in the text; or 3) asking for grace to be faithful to an exhortation in the text.

After the silence, a “Canticle” is sung or said. A Canticle is a song or song-like passage from somewhere in the Bible other than the Psalms. These are sung as prayer-responses to the readings.

The two standard canticles sung at Evening Prayer are the “Magnificat” (Song of Mary) and the “Nunc Dimittis” (Song of Simeon), both of which are taken from Luke’s Gospel. Traditionally, the Magnificat is used at every Evening Prayer and the Nunc Dimittis is used daily at Compline. If you don’t say Compline, you can pray the Nunc Dimittis nightly at Evensong.

On page 145, there is a schedule you can use to rotate the canticles. The numbered canticles are found on pp. 85-95. They are part of the order for Morning Prayer, so the publishers opted not to reprint them in Evening Prayer.

I personally find it easier just to place a marker in the canticles section and proceed in number order while doing the Magnificat as the last canticle each night. On page 85, the first canticle is #8 (1-7 are in “King James” English). So I would do #8 after the first Reading, #9 after the second Reading and then the Magnificat after the third Reading. The next day I would do #10 after the first reading, and so forth. Upon reaching the last of the Canticles, I would start over again at #8 and cycle them.

The final response to the Readings is the recitation of the Apostle’s Creed. This summary of the Christian Faith is of great antiquity, being attested to in extant writings from the 4th century. From at least that time, it was ascribed to the 12 apostles themselves (though, of course, we have no way of knowing such with any certainty).

It is likely of an origin older than the Nicene Creed, which was first written in conjunction with the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. At that time, the central heresy being confronted was Arianism – the notion that Jesus was not truly God. While the Nicene Creed thoroughly asserts the truth of Jesus’ divinity, the Apostle’s Creed seems to focus on an earlier concern – that of Gnosticism. It upholds that Jesus himself was bodily born, suffered, crucified, died, buried and was raised. It also affirms the “resurrection of the body.”

By prayerfully reciting the creed, we unite with all Christians throughout the world and throughout history in affirming the central truths of the Christian faith.

Okay – only one more part left to go and we’ll have worked our way entirely through the BCP order for Evening Prayer!

How to Pray the Daily Office from the Book of Common Prayer

Richard — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 07:56:04 +0000

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 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.

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

Part 2 (Psalms 56-104) booklet / standard

Part 3 (Psalms 105-150) booklet / standard

How to Pray the Daily Office from the Book of Common Prayer (Part 4) – The Psalms

Richard — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:38:38 +0000

The Book of Psalms is an incredible gift of God to the Church. Regularly singing the entire book of Psalms is the spiritual practice I commend to people most frequently. Their uniqueness lies in while most of Scripture portrays the history of Israel from either a God’s-eye or birds-eye view, the Psalm give us the inside perspective of how Israel experienced their life before God, and simultaneously invites us into the personal experience of that very Story. Praying the entire book of Psalms is the core of the Daily Office and thus should never be downplayed, omitted or shortened.

Historically, the entire office developed from this nucleus of psalmody. Even as far back as the Desert Fathers and Mothers (4th century), it was common for a monk to pray the entire book of Psalms every single day. As St. Benedict established in the sixth century, it became standard practice for the Psalms to be recited once per week. To this kernel of Psalms were added Scriptural readings, prayers and chants which eventually grew into the formal structures of the Daily Office. When Cranmer released the Book of Common Prayer in 1549, the entire Psalter was to be prayed each month. The 1979 edition makes provision for either a 7-week or one-month cycle.

Interestingly enough, my practice of praying the Daily Office began by praying the psalms. I heard somewhere that Martin Luther had the entire book of psalms memorized from singing it through every week as a monk. I don’t really know if the story is true, but I decided that I wanted the same to be true of me in 30 years. So I began singing through the Book of Psalms on a weekly basis. I’ll tell you, that when I did it the first time, I discovered how completely unfamiliar I was with the Psalms. Many passages, I felt like I had never heard or read before.

The Psalms are rather strange in the light of contemporary Christianity. Yet their incredible richness stems from a form of spirituality that is a marked alternative to the quasi-gnostic forms of spirituality that masquerade throughout the Church as Biblical. The Psalms represent to us the most concrete and expansive expression of a truly Biblical Spirituality. In contrast to a quasi-gnostic nihilism that might say “nothing in the world matters” or that history, the life of the body, circumstances, etc. all don’t matter because of Jesus (or something akin to that), the Psalmists seem to strongly believe that their lives on earth truly matter and truly matter to God. The Spirituality of the Psalms is not an “I’ll retreat into my inner life because there nothing in the world matters” but rather a much more risky partnership with the compassionate God who draws near to His people in the earthly life so unstable, unpredictable, full of calamity yet imbibed with meaning by virtue of the God who created it and continually chooses to acknowledge its worth. God’s constant intervention into earthly life (or the groan rising from the absence of God’s intervention) persistently affirms the value of an earthly, bodily, physical, sensory, historical, full-of-feeling existence which remains under the persistent threat of a nihilism seeking to render it meaningless. This spirituality, though very much full of hope (and indeed precisely because it is), never allows us to “soar above the vale of tears” but again and again brings us into a suffering resistance to the violence, evil, injustice and death that so marks our age.

OK – I’m trying just to teach you how to pray the Psalms, but sometimes I get really excited. I am really passionate about the Psalms and their Spirituality. Eventually (since I already have 4 or 5 series after this one already planned), I’ll come back and unpack this previous overly-long paragraph.

Back to the Prayerbook.

This page should look familiar from the last time.

Immediately after the Phos Hilaron, or any opening hymn/song/canticle, follows the “Psalms Appointed.” This means the Psalms that are appointed for the day, according to whatever schedule of Psalms you happen to be following (I’ll come back to this in a second). The rubrics say that the Gloria Patri (“Glory to the Father, and to the Son…”) is said at the end of the Psalms. This could be either after each Psalm (or section of Psalm 119, or other Psalm that is split up), or after all the Psalms prayed/sung at that time. I like to sing to the Gloria Patri after every Psalm because it helps me focus (and refocus) on praying to the actual persons of the Trinity, the overflowing community of self-giving love.

We’ve skipped a few pages now to # 585. The BCP contains the entire Book of Psalms.

“First Day: Morning Prayer” is the first of many indicators included right in the text of the Psalter that divides the Psalms into a 30-day schedule. If you pray both Morning and Evening Prayer, then you would pray them as divided for Morning and Evening. If you pray only one office per day, you would pray both the Morning and Evening psalms for each given day. If you want to sing the Psalter twice a month, use Days 1 and 2 on the first day, 3 and 4 on the second day, etc.

If you’re not using the BCP but just want to pray the Psalms out of your Bible, click here to download a schedule for dividing the Psalter into monthly, bi-monthly or weekly schedules.

Since it is a 30-day schedule, the “First Day” means the first day of the calendar month. On months with more than 30 days you can pick any day to repeat. In February (less than 30 days), you’ll just skip the days not in the month and start back again at the beginning on March 1.

We’ve skipped pages again – now we’re at 936.

This is the first page from the Daily Office Lectionary. A lectionary is a schedule of readings according to the Church Year.

I’ll explain how to navigate the lectionary more when I discuss the “Readings” section of the Office next time, but for now, notice how next to Sunday at the very top, there are the numbers “146, 147 * 111, 112, 113.“

These are Psalms for each day according to a 7-week schedule. The Psalms left of the asterisk are for Morning Prayer and right of the asterisk are for Evening Prayer. Again, if you pray one office daily, pray both sets of Psalms.

This schedule obviously does not move sequentially through the Psalms like the 30-day schedule. However, it is preferable if you have less time available to pray the Office.

An additional option for one with limited time would be to do a 60-day cycle through the Psalms – by praying the First Day: Morning Prayer Psalms on Day 1, then First Day Evening Prayer on Day 2, and so on.

That’s it! Having completed the Opening (section 1) and the Psalms (section 2), next time I’ll discuss the third major section of the Daily Office – the Readings.

How to Pray the Daily Office from the Book of Common Prayer (Part 3) – The Opening

Richard — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:13:14 +0000

Transcendence is what comes to mind, when I think of joining in the very prayers the Church has made from its earliest days. One type of prayer expresses what is in our hearts. Another type of prayer lifts us into an expanse far transcending the confines of our limited self. Prayers and hymns whose life extend to the second and third century, and earlier, are foundational constituents of the Daily Office.

After discussing the Christian Year as the backdrop upon which the BCP Prayer services are built, and then introducing the BCP itself, I am now going to lead you page by page in how exactly to use the Prayerbook to pray. Much of it is self-explanatory, but I have given a running commentary along the side to spell out exactly what is going on, in an attempt to make it perfectly clear. You may not need such explanation to begin. If so, just start using it and refer back here if you have any questions.

Text in Orange is to identify words that are actually on that page of the prayerbook. If anything is confusing, please comment and I will try to clarify.

NB: The intended audience for this series is people who have no experience in using liturgical forms of prayer so I have attempted to explain everything. My apologies in advance if this seems a little pedantic.

As I mentioned last time, it’s helpful for me to see all of the BCP prayer services as having four parts, in this order:

1) Opening

2) Psalms

3) Readings

4) Prayers

There are also four different prayer services that essentially use this same four-part format:

1) Morning Prayer

2) Midday (Noon) Prayer

3) Evening Prayer

4) Compline (bedtime)

This post will focus on the first section (the “Opening”) as it specifically relates to Evening Prayer. After we discuss the central four-part structure in Evening Prayer, I’ll show you some of the ways it is used in the other three offices.

To begin, you would open to this page in the prayer book. It will look exactly like this in every Book of Common Prayer (as long as it is the 1979 version).

“Daily Evening Prayer” means that this is the same order used for prayer every evening. The general structure stays the same with certain parts (the psalms, canticles, readings, etc.) changing for each day.

“Rite Two” indicates that this order is in modern english (“Rite One” is in “King James” English)

Notice the smaller font in italics. Those are the “rubrics,” which is a fancy way for saying “instructions.”

“Officiant” is the person leading the service if it is done in a group. If you are praying by yourself, you are the Officiant.

Evening prayer begins with an Opening Sentence from Scripture. Most of them specifically relate to evening/night time and so set the mood for a time of prayer in the evening. The rubric says you can also select one from Morning Prayer, which there relate to the Church Year rather than the time of day.

Simply choose one (or more) sentence(s), read it (them) prayerfully and move on.

Next follows the Confession of Sin. The rubrics say that this “may be said.” In other words, it is optional.

It is good to take a moment where the rubric says “Silence may be kept” to ask God to show you anything you need to confess and/or repent of from that day.

At “what we have done…” feel free to pause and specifically mention what the Holy Spirit brought to your mind. The same goes for “what we have left undone.” If the Holy Spirit didn’t bring anything to mind, don’t go looking for something, just keep going.

This is a blessing of forgiveness spoken over the people when prayed corporately. When praying alone, take a moment after confession to consciously receive forgiveness from God and ask for the grace to sin no more.

The formal beginning of the service is with “O God, make speed to save us…” which was established as the opening of Vespers by St. Benedict in the sixth century (meaning it was likely standard practice from much earlier). This is a common form in liturgical prayer called “Versicle and Response,” in which the Officiant and the People alternate responsively. When prayed alone, say both parts. This set is taken from Ps. 70:1 and begins the service expressing our desperate need of God’s salvation and active involvement in our lives.

Next follows the Gloria Patri, “Glory to the Father…” (2nd or 3rd century) in which the Triune God, the fellowship of divine love, is upheld at the center of all Christian prayer. Christian prayer, though in many cases springs from immediate problems (O God, make speed to save us…), it is centered amidst and stabilized upon the deep love of the three persons of the Trinity.

Immediately, the “Alleluia” is said as an exclamation of delight in the Triune God who will come to save us (although it is not said in Lent because it is a season of penitence rather than rejoicing).

The hymn, “Phos hilaron” is included as an opening hymn, though the rubrics on the previous page say that “some other suitable hymn, or an Invitatory Psalm” may be used. I’ll discuss Invitatory Psalms when we get to Morning Prayer.

The “Phos Hilaron” dates from around the 3rd century (read: its REALLY old!) and was a traditional hymn sung at evening time when the lamps were lit. I think it is a beautiful text, so I sing it every night. However, feel free to substitute in any hymn or canticle as a form of “opening praise.”

This brings us to the end of the first major section – “The Opening.” So far its pretty easy, eh? Next time, we’ll discuss the second major section, and my personal favorite – the Psalms.

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