Prayer Appointed for the Week: Sunday closest to October 5

Almighty and everlasting God,
You are always more ready to hear than we to pray,
and to give more than we either desire or deserve:
Pour upon Your church the abundance of Your mercy,
forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid,
and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask,
except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior;
Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

We've moved into the book The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Vineyard Church in Ann Arbor has the Divine Hours prayers on its website.

This prayer originates from The Book of Common Prayer. It the Collect (Contemporary) Proper 22, for the Sunday closest to October 5th. Page 234 in my copy of the BCP.

(Vineyard Church in Ann Arbor seems to be one week behind. Or maybe I am one week ahead.)

Prayer Appointed for the Week: Sunday 9/4/11

(This is late. A headache and a holiday...)

Grant me, O Lord, to trust in you with all my heart; for as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with 7ou and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Vineyard Church in Ann Arbor has the Divine Hours prayers on its website, here.

This prayer originates from The Book of Common Prayer. It the Collect (Contemporary) Proper 18, for the Sunday closest to September 7th. Page 233 in my copy of the BCP:

Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for, as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

In the Divine Hours, the prayers have been changed for individual use. In the BCP, they are written for use in a group.


(Vineyard Church in Ann Arbor is using the Collect for the Sunday closest to August 31st.)

Praying the Offices: Why I Like This Form of Prayer

My watch alarm just beeped and it reminded me to pray. I set this alarm for a few minutes before noon so that I can pray the Lord's Prayer at noon. Today, I also prayed the office with Phyllis Tickle's book, The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime.

Why do I like this form of prayer?

One day, I just got sick of my prayer list. My eyes were opened to the selfishness of the list. I was praying for good things for family, friends and myself. But it was just one long list of things I wanted God to do for me. Yes, many of them were spiritual things, but still....

1. Praying the office causes me to pray in the language of the Bible. Psalms and other portions of scripture are used extensively.

2. Praying the office lets me use some of the deepest and most beautifully worded prayers that I have ever seen. And they are things I want! For example, "The Prayer Appointed for the Week" for this week, from The Divine Hours:

O God, you have taught me to keep all your commandments by loving you and my neighbor: Grant me the grace of your Holy Spirit, that I may be devoted to you with my whole heart, and united to others with pure affection' through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Divine Hours, page 206. Taken from the Book of Common Prayer, slightly adapted for individual use.

3. By using the form of prayer, over time, I will begin to remember these phrases, ideas and perhaps eventual even memorize psalms and prayers.

I think those are my top three reasons. More later.

Praying the Offices Resource List

First, I will give you a list of books and such that helped me figure out what Praying the Offices was all about. (Then, perhaps, you will look all this up and won't need my series.)

When I first became curious about this, I had a hard time finding out information. It is easier now. I'm not sure why, but I suspect because, 1) more Christians are incorporating this type of prayer into their lives and talking, blogging and tweeting about it and 2) lots more things are available on the internet now than were available nine or ten (or more) years ago. (It is hard to remember what it was like on the internet nine or ten years ago!)




Daily Prayer, by Robert Benson. Daily Prayer contains a DVD of a seminar Robert gave to a small group in which he explains the daily office, a CD with morning, midday, evening, night and a few other prayers, and a booklet with bookmark, both of which contain the prayers and information that you need to get started. (The idea of printing some of the office on the book was really good and lets you avoid some of the flipping back and forth in a book that is otherwise required.)

This is at the top of my list for a reason. I think it is a very good explanation of the whole process. I started here, keep the CD in the car, and just recently started carrying the booklet and bookmark in my purse for those times I am away. I have come to really appreciate the booklet/bookmark. (If you will use this with your family or a small group, order the extra booklets and bookmarks.)



The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle. Here at explorefaith.org is information about the books, including excerpts from the introduction in the books and more. The A Brief History of Fixed Hour Prayer from that website is very good. It is taken word-for-word from the books, The Divine Hours.

The books are available at amazon. There are three books for daytime prayer. (I coped the images from amazon.com, but you cannot really look inside from here! Links to amazon.com with reviews are below.)


The Divine Hours: Prayer for Springtime,
 

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime,  


The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime.

These guide you through praying the Morning, Midday, Vespers (evening) and Compline Hours (before bed) for the whole year.  (Christmastide: Prayers for Advent through Epiphany from The Divine Hours and the similarly titled one for Eastertide are excerpts from the seasonal books.)





During my early exploration of this topic (around my other duties of being a wife, mother to three young kids, their homeschooling teacher and trying to keep house and meals together), I found a discarded Book of Common Prayer at a library sale. I bought it. It did not come with explanations of how to use it. I loved the wording, I loved the idea, but was very frustrated with how to use it.  I still tried! Then I found the Robert Benson's Daily Prayer and Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours and put it away. For a while.




At the website The Book of Common Prayer is some info that I did not have about the Book of Common Prayer. Lots of good stuff on this site.



A few years ago, I found two very helpful books about how to use the BCP (what those in the know call the Book of Common Prayer). 

A User's Guide to Morning and Evening Prayer

Finally! Step-by-step directions! This helped so much. I copied the directions down on a strip of cardstock and used that as a bookmark (borrowing the idea from Robert Benson).







Welcome to the Book of Common Prayer

Also very helpful. I got these two books at the same time and read them together and I think I would recommend both, not one or the other.

There are more resources that I want to mention, but that will do for a start!