Cantica Gaudia

Praying the Daily Office with joy.

Many faith traditions invite adherents to pray at regular times of the day. The Anglican communion, of which the Episcopal Church is a part, has slimmed the traditional monastic hours down to four short prayer services per day -- morning, noon, evening, and at end of day (usually called "compline," with origins in the same word as "complete"). The Book of Common Prayer (known to its friends as "BCP") provides a structure for these prayers, along with a lectionary that details short passages of scripture to be inserted at appropriate spots in the worship.

I love praying the Daily Office every day. It grounds and centers me, pulling me away from the hamster wheel in my head into the generous and welcoming space of God's grace and love. It's a few minutes when I can concentrate on a larger horizon, and remember what it's all about.

However, I have a bad case of prayerbook promiscuity. I love the BCP... and the New Zealand Prayer Book... and Celtic Daily Prayer... and Enriching Our Worship... and oh, the translations of the Psalms by Norman Fischer are so deepening... To incorporate all of these wonderful expressions of faith into my worship, I can sometimes find myself with four or five books open on my lap as I'm trying to navigate through a single instance of morning prayer. Not good.

This Advent, I spent the whole of December with one prayerbook, Mary's Hours by Penelope Duckworth. It was small enough to carry with me everywhere and concentrated enough that I could find time to do all of the four daily prayers whatever else was going on. I found it a rich and nourishing process to read the same prayers over and over through the week, learning more from them and having different experiences of them day to day.

So I'm experimenting here with doing something of the same thing, for different seasons of the Church year. I've compiled prayers for all seven days of the week, at each of the four daily offices -- skooshing some elements of the traditional services together a bit, but hopefully without violating the essential elements of the structure. Let me know if you find this useful -- or wish there was something I haven't included -- or have additional prayer resources to share with me!