#Anglican divine office series
There’s no way to organize all these prayers - so the prayer books rely on a series of colored ribbons that function as bookmarks. Traditionally, breviaries (prayer books) include certain prayers that are prayed daily or almost daily (such as the Canticle of Zechariah and the Canticle of Mary, known respectively as the Benedictus and the Magnificat), others that are prayed in a rotation (such as the 150 Psalms, which are prayed over a two-week or four-week cycle) and then of course various prayers that are only prayed on rare occasions, usually linked to a particular saint’s day or feast day of the church year). And finally, since the alignment of days on the calendar and days of the week shift each year (this year February 11 is a Monday, next year it will fall on a Tuesday), there is always a shift in what prayers need to be prayed on which particular day. The date of Easter determines the dates of other key dates - Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Pentecost being some of the big ones.
#Anglican divine office full
But Easter varies from year to year, calculated based on the first full moon after the spring equinox. Sure, Christmas is always on December 25 and the feast of St.
#Anglican divine office how to
Which means - when we pray the Liturgy faithfully, day in and day out, it not only teaches us how to pray, but it also forms us in the knowledge and memory of the Christian faith.Įvery year, the calendar of the Christian year changes slightly. Prayers are organized by the season of the year (Lent, Easter, Advent, Christmas, and so forth), with special prayers for days that commemorate key events in the life of Christ, or memorials for the lives of great saints and martyrs. Some are single volume collections of prayers, others run up to four volumes - the entire set consisting of almost 8000 pages of prayers! These books are designed to be used multiple times every day, day in and day out, year in and year out. At the end of this post I list links to several of my personal favorite prayer books. I recommend investing some money into one or more versions of the Divine Office.
But if they turn to the great literature of prayer: the psalms, the canticles, great hymns, and written prayers composed and collected from throughout the ages - then over time, their “prayer lexicon” expands, and they develop a deeper and more nuanced voice for prayer.Īmong other things, daily prayer books like The Liturgy of the Hours teach us how to pray. Likewise, people who pray seriously (and regularly) might soon discover that, if they rely only on their own experience and their own vocabulary when praying, sooner or later their prayer all starts to sound the same. Yes, maybe they would rather play “from heart” or memory, but musicians understand that to grow as musicians, they need to learn a variety of different tunes, songs, melodies, styles of playing - and it just makes more sense to rely on written music to expand one’s musical repertoire. Why? For the same reason that musicians collect sheet music of songs. But the Daily Office is a practical way to pray - even for people who don’t like to pray out of a book.
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