The Spiritual Disciplines: Praying the Daily Office

In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Paul gives us a bracing challenge: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

Pray without ceasing! How do you even get started?

There are many ways to approach the idea of constant prayer, but one way is through the spiritual discipline of praying the Daily Office: Morning and Evening Prayer.

The Daily Office is a lectionary-based liturgical style of prayer that combines Scripture readings with specific prayers for each season of the Christian calendar and indeed each week and day of the year. It is a structured yet flexible format for prayer, offering a “backbone” of Scripture combined with a framework of traditional written prayers (most of which draw specifically on Scripture verses for their language), with “space” built in for extemporaneous, personal prayer. By making choices about what to include and what to skip, each individual can personalize the Daily Office to fit different preferences and amounts of time, from 15 minutes to… however long you want to pray!

The benefits of praying the Daily Office are fourfold.

First, it helps deepen and expand one’s prayer. It is easy to fall into just doing one type of prayer, usually petitionary or intercessory. The Daily Office liturgies lead us through all five main types of prayer: adoration, contrition, intercession, petition, and thanksgiving.

Second, it helps us internalize God’s Word. Many of the recurring prayers and canticles come directly from the Bible. By praying these every single day, the words of Scripture become engraved on our hearts and minds.

Third, it immerses us in the Word. If you read both Morning and Evening Prayer, every day you will read two or more Psalms plus a reading from the Old Testament, one from the New Testament, and one from the Gospel. What’s more, the Scripture selections go in order, so if you read the Daily Office every day, you will find yourself reading through entire books of the Bible in a disciplined way. For example, during Lent this year the readings go through all of 1 Corinthians and the Gospel of Mark. Thus, we hear all of God’s word, not just our favorite passages.

Finally, praying the Daily Office is a discipline. Committing to praying the Morning or Evening Office means praying regardless of whether you really “feel like it” or not. It is a discipline because our choice to be obedient to Jesus, who tells us to pray, takes precedence over our transitory emotions. It teaches us to turn to God in prayer every day, not just the days when we feel pious or when we feel needy, and challenges us to confront our misplaced priorities. It is far too easy to make time with God something other than #1 on my priority list. If I am “too busy” or “too tired” to pray on a daily basis, that means I am putting something else higher than time with Him.

That said, praying the Daily Office is not about “getting it right” or racking up X number of prayer times per week, but rather about making a commitment to spend time in prayer with God on a daily basis. I tend to be a perfectionist, so my pastor was careful to remind me that while I should take the discipline seriously, it wasn’t something that I am locked into. There are days when I miss Evening Prayer because I have been away all day, or simply because I truly am tired or ill. What matters is to look at my overall pattern of prayer with discernment: am I making excuses for not praying regularly, or am I showing a healthy flexibility? For myself, if I am saying Evening Prayer 5-6 days out of 7, then I feel confident that I am being disciplined without making the prayer an end in itself.

I began doing Evening Prayer during Lent in 2008, by the recommendation of Fr Doran, who is my spiritual director. I found that it so enriched my prayer life that I made it an ongoing practice. In the summer of 2009, with the encouragement of one of our senior pastors, I added Morning Prayer, and once again found that this discipline helped deepen my relationship with Christ. What was initially a challenging commitment very quickly became a cherished part of my daily walk with Christ. I can feel a real difference in every aspect of my life when I start and finish the day with prayer. For one thing, I find myself more readily turning to God in prayer at various times during the day, not just during my scheduled prayer time!

By now, I hope you are at least a little bit intrigued by this spiritual discipline!

But wait… HOW do you pray the Daily Office?!?  It’s easy. Let me walk you through it!

In order to read the Daily Office, you will need two things:

1. Your Bible.

2. The Book of Common Prayer.

The Book of Common Prayer is an Anglican prayer book that is readily available in any Christian bookstore or through Amazon. Created in 1500s England, it incorporates prayer from the very earliest Fathers of the Church, and prayers based on Holy Scripture, as well as prayers written by 16th century and later pastors. You can also find the contents of the BCP online here (in printable form) and also here at BCPonline.org.

The BCP contains the liturgy, the basic “structure” of the Office. The prayers are the same for every day. Note: feel free to shorten the Office by leaving out some parts of it. Keep it simple, and you’re more likely to do it!

Interleaved into the structure of the Daily Office are the Readings:  one or more Psalms and one or more Scripture lessons. These readings will change for each day. You can find the readings for each day listed in the back of the BCP, under the title of Daily Office Lectionary. (Or click the appropriate link at the BCPonline.org version.) The Lectionary contains an entry for each day that tells you what the reading is for that day.

The Readings are arranged by the liturgical calendar. Sunday is the start of each week. For instance, as I write this, we are in the week of Last Epiphany (that is, the last week before Lent). We are in Year Two (we alternate between Year One and Year Two, with the Christian year starting in Advent).

So, let’s look at the listing for Friday of the week of Last Epiphany:

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Friday 95 & 31 *   35

Ezek. 18:1-4, 25-32         Phil. 4:1-9       John 17:9-19

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This listing includes psalms for the morning and psalms for the evening (the numbers with the star separating morning and evening psalms), and three selections from Scripture, which fit into the section called “Lessons” in the structure of the prayer service. You can choose how many readings you do. Personally, I choose to read one lesson at Morning Prayer and one at Evening Prayer.

Let’s say we are doing Evening Prayer on Friday of Last Epiphany.

Turn to the Evening Prayer I section in the Book of Common Prayer. If I am praying in a group, one person leads (the officiant) and everyone else responds, but if I am praying alone, I read everything myself, both verses and responses.

I usually skip over the first bits and start with the Invitatory, which is found on page 63. “O God, make speed to save us. O Lord, make haste to help us…” Next, I would say the hymn “O Gracious Light,” and then read the Psalm appointed for the evening: in this case, Psalm 35, followed by the Gloria Patri (Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit…). Then I would read the selection from the Epistle, in this case Philippians 4 verses 1-9, and take a few moments to reflect on it. I usually then move directly to reading the Gospel lesson, which for this day would be John 17, verses 9-19, and again reflect on it briefly. You can choose to read a canticle after each lesson, but I usually just read one, after the Gospel lesson, and I usually choose the Song of Simeon (which comes straight from Luke).

Now we have finished the Lessons and continue with the liturgy: the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and one of the sets of suffrages (general intercessory prayers), either A or B. I usually choose Suffrages A for the evening and Suffrages B for the morning.

Finally, we come to the Collect of the Day. Here you turn to the section of the Book of Common Prayer called “Collects” (I prefer the Traditional ones rather than the Contemporary ones). There is a collect, a short prayer, for each week in the Christian calendar. In this latter half of the week of Last Epiphany, we use the collect for Ash Wednesday, which reads as follows:

Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou has made and dost forgive the sins of all those who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Isn’t this a marvelous prayer to say as we enter the penitential season of Lent?

The Collect of the Day is followed by a collect specific to the day of the week, found back in the Evening Prayer liturgy. The Collect for Fridays is as follows:

O Lord Jesus Christ, who by thy death didst take away the sting of death: Grant unto us thy servants so to follow in faith where thou hast led the way, that we may at length fall asleep peacefully in thee, and awake up after thy likeness; for thy tender mercies’ sake. Amen.

This point in the liturgy is the perfect place for a time of personal, extemporaneous prayer. Sometimes I just spend a few moments quietly resting in Him before I head off to a busy day. Sometimes I conclude the Office immediately, and other times I spend quite a while in further prayer, with the specific things that I have on my mind or in my heart at that time.

After the collects, a few other short prayers are included that you can choose to pray through, or not, as you wish. The Daily Office then concludes with a closing sentence; each of the choices comes directly from Scripture. The closing sentence offers a clear ending to the Office, so that our personal prayers don’t just trail off into plans for the day or thoughts about who-knows-what. Instead, the closing sentence leaves us to start the day (or to wind down the day) with words of Holy Scripture on our lips and in our thoughts.

Although the Daily Office seems complicated at first, it gets easier very quickly. It is well worth the time it takes to get into the habit… and Lent is a wonderful opportunity to step forward into a deeper, more faithful prayer life. During this concentrated 40-day period, the mindful practice of spiritual disciplines like Morning or Evening Prayer can help us to grow in love and obedience to our Lord. Over our lifetimes, even a very small step taken during Lent can add up to significant spiritual growth and a deeper maturity in the faith.

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

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Related posts:

1. The Spiritual Disciplines: The Wings of Prayer
2. Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread
3. Praying Where I’m At
4. Praying Through the Collect for Purity