Daily prayer

When I was in my early twenties, I visited the bookstore of Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, and purchased a copy of The Daily Office, edited by Herbert Lindemann and published by Concordia in 1965. A small volume, it nevertheless runs to nearly 700 pages and includes liturgies for morning and evening prayer organized according to the church calendar. This ancient practice, usually associated with monastic communities, was unfamiliar to me, but it transformed my prayer life.

Each prayer office begins with these verses from the Psalms, reflecting ancient usage:

O Lord, open Thou my lips. And my mouth shall show forth Thy praise. Make haste, O God, to deliver me. Make haste to help me, O Lord (Psalm 51:15; Psalm 40:13/70:1).

Morning prayer, or matins, then proceeds to Psalm 95, then to a hymn, and then to another Psalm, taking us through the entire Psalter in a year. These are followed by a scripture passage, and then one of three canticles: the Te Deum (“We praise thee, O God”), the Benedictus (Song of Zechariah from Luke 1:68-79), or the Magnificat (Mary’s song from Luke 1:46-55). The office concludes with prayers gathered from a variety of sources and the Lord’s Prayer. Evening prayer, or vespers, follows a similar pattern.

I subsequently discovered that Archbishop Thomas Cranmer had prescribed the two offices of morning and evening prayer in his Book of Common Prayer (BCP) in the 16th century, undertaking to put what had been monastic practice back in the hands of ordinary people.

What impressed me most about the daily office was the generous use of the Psalms. While the Lindemann volume prescribed two Psalms per week, Cranmer prescribed a 30-day schedule for praying through all 150 Psalms. At roughly the same time, Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins were busily compiling a metrical psalter enabling parishioners to sing them at home and in their churches.

Ancient patterns

I have followed this pattern of daily prayer for nearly half a century, and our family has occasionally used a similar pattern. Although I once followed the Daily Office Lectionary found in the American 1979 BCP, I now read straight through the New Testament a chapter a day in the morning, and two chapters of the Old Testament in the evening.

Some might find such a pattern too constraining, preferring extemporaneous prayers and a less systematic approach to the Bible. But I have found it liberating. The Benedictine monks were definitely onto something in following a pattern which almost certainly dates from ancient Israelite usage. I do incorporate petitions and thanksgiving for various people and causes, but it is a relief to know that I don’t have to reinvent the larger structure – that huge numbers of Christians before me have cultivated their relationship with God using these same patterns. And for that I am most grateful.