Volume 1 Issue 1 : simplebooklet.com

04 THE HOUR STATE OF THE DIALOGUE We contend that the pervasive neglect of for sure it is also doubtful that private the Daily Office throughout our church is a recitation is faring much better since it is real problem and it is to that problem that often this inaugural issue of The Hour is Evening Prayer at the parish that one directed gains familiarity with it Not to mention our through attending Morning or impression that the Daily Office isn t a At first glance this neglect is somewhat high priority in the standard adult puzzling given the venerable place that formation programs one finds in parishes the Daily Office occupies in the Anglican We d love to be proven wrong though tradition It has been in the Book of Common Prayer from the beginning and These observations lead us to suspect even received a thorough update in our that the neglect of the Daily Office is most recent revision of 1979 Rubrics mostly due to incidental factors that have were adjusted canticles were added and been uncritically allowed to diminish its the Daily Office Lectionary completely observance Even a cursory study of overhauled just to name a few examples some mainstream commentaries on the So the Daily Office wasn t retained out of Prayer Book reveals that most everybody some kind of honorary nod to tradition On who cares enough about the Daily Office the contrary when considered on its own to write about it understands what it is and terms it is clearly the expectation of our why it s important Which only further Prayer confirms our suspicion Book that the Daily Office continues to be observed as an integral part of the worship of the Episcopal But while there was nothing internally Church necessary or inevitable about the neglect of the Daily Office you wouldn t And yet so far as the public recitation of necessarily know it from the state of the the Daily Office is concerned it seems conversation that this expectation has hardly been met surprised to find how little attention this While it would be impossible to determine receives That s not to say that you won t Indeed one might be

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THE HOUR find all kinds of takes about the Daily like a chemical reaction introduce this Office the Prayer Book and everything variable or change this element in here else Episcopalians after all are almost and then people out there will respond constitutionally predisposed to nurture accordingly So if people are neglecting various pet preferences regarding the the Daily Office the reflex is to think that liturgy And so despite our consensus we need to determine which version of the about what the Daily Office is it seems Daily Office is the best that is the most that most discussions about increasing its accessible so that people will find it observance to the extent that there are more attractive But notice how the such discussions are dominated either proposed solution inadvertently changes by comparative debates over this or that the problem it intends to solve A problem version supplemental that was first understood to be the neglect material on the one hand or by various of the Daily Office is subtly transformed excuses about the pressures of modern into a problem that is internal to the Daily life on the other Theory and practice are Office itself and can likewise be solved oddly divorced from each other we do not internally or method or sufficiently appeal to our theory of the Daily Office itself to commend it as a Granted this is partly indicative of that spiritual practice Instead we all too often peculiarly Episcopalian fetish whereby we ignore our theory and find ourselves take the agency and responsibility that is engaged in intramural competitions of properly ours and project it onto the liturgical partisanship liturgy But to the extent that we do this in an attempt to make the Daily Office more This feature of our discourse demands accessible it also masks our insecurity analysis and critique not only because it s Put another way our anxieties about so instinctive in our church but also accessibility and hospitality betray a because the certain resignation which is that our exclusive framing for just about every church life can only ever be derivative of issue we engage from church decline to the terms and conditions that modern life Prayer Book revision to evangelism to establishes for us in advance all we can spiritual growth No matter the problem do is make ourselves as accessible as we seem to look in vain for something possible Nor is there any sense that the it nearly functions as 05

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THE HOUR 06 terms and conditions of modern life are life It should come as no surprise that always up for grabs produced as they are there would be a similar gap fixed by the contradictions established under between the practice of the Church and capitalism that make our world anything the social order to which the Church but static extends her invitation What this means for the Daily Office specifically is that no This resignation does much to explain our matter how accessible we make it there fixation management is still not one person who has ever said whether of the Daily Office or otherwise Morning or Evening Prayer that wasn t for it serves as a convenient proxy by required to make an original fateful which to divert our attention away from the decision to do one thing instead of real problem The inconvenient truth is another Even the most accessible Daily that modern life will provide neither the Office imaginable would still present itself stability nor the fixed point of reference to as something at fundamental variance which we could make something perfectly with the order of one s life at that moment accessible It is not a horizon that we can The Daily Office demands that something reach has to give As this reality slowly dawns on our church This is not to argue that the Daily Office is the cynicism sets in And the fact that we an absolute and immutable prescription continue neurotically Nor are we suggesting that the Daily doubling down on even more internal Office is being neglected because we are management only reveals its depths But too mediocre to adopt it That would risk there s no reason that we should be so aligning ourselves with the neoliberal cynical for this reality is nothing other reduction of human life to individual than what Christian asceticism has always responsibility along with the punitive accepted as its first principle All ascetical moralism that comes with it The Hour disciplines the Daily Office included opposes both of these unequivocally begin with the recognition that there is an There irreducible gap not only between the soul structuring and God but also between the soul and commending it to people that would likely the self as we experience it in this mortal help increase its observance The essays with to liturgical respond by are certainly the ways Daily of both Office and

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THE HOUR included in this issue are concerned with doing just that But if increasing the observance of the Daily Office is a goal in our church we do no one any favors by ignoring the inherent asceticism required to achieve it However an ascetical discipline can only be appreciated when the nature of the moral theology in which it is situated is in fundamental alignment with it If that is not the case and we suspect that it likely isn t in the Episcopal Church at present it means that we will only increase our devotion to the Daily Office to the extent that our moral theology shares in its ascetical struggle Caleb Roberts Champaign Illinois 07

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10 THE HOUR Evelyn Underhill THE PARISH PRIEST AND THE LIFE OF PRAYER In the early part of 1930 the Archbishop Underhill excoriated a segment of the of Canterbury William Cosmo Lang was Archbishop s clergy whom she perceived preparing to host around 300 hundred to bishops philanthropists from across the Anglican be merely lacking consecrated in spiritual Communion at the seventh Lambeth realism According to Underhill many Conference The last Conference in Anglican 1920 had proven to be a milestone for the rather than theocentric and consequently ecumenical movement and controversial their dealings with the souls under their in of care are often vague and amateurish It contraception The challenge of Christian is no wonder that they fail to evoke the unity and the question of the Church s spirit of adoration in the public worship acceptance of contraception had not gone they lead because they do not possess it away of course However there was themselves The answer that Underhill another importance communicated to Lang and the rest of the brewing In late 1929 or early 1930 the bishops is as simple as it is difficult The prominent author and spiritual director bishops must insist that their clergy s Evelyn Underhill wrote Archbishop Lang primary responsibility be the cultivation of with some unsolicited agenda items for their own lives of devotion and prayer Lambeth VII She opened her letter Underhill understood that in most cases directly this will take a complete rearrangement its treatment issue of of the utmost issue priests were humanitarian I desire very humbly to suggest with of values and a reduction of social bishops assembled at Lambeth that the activities She recognized that the clergy greatest and most necessary work they were too busy in the routine work of could do at the present time for the running parishes and they usually did not spiritual Anglican have the necessary time to devote to Church would be to call the clergy as a prayer and the cultivation of an interior life whole solemnly and insistently to a directed toward God For Underhill this greater interiority and cultivation of the was a dire state of affairs that would have personal life of prayer to change if the Anglican Communion was renewal of the

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11 THE HOUR going to meet the challenges of an gathered at Lambeth Palace to consider already tumultuous century For example she wished to see a serious program of spiritual formation become a While Evelyn Underhill had been baptized larger part of ministerial training in the Church of England as an infant she spent much of her adult life in the orbit of We do not know if Lang ever read the the Roman Catholic Church She finally letter to the assembled bishops at the recommitted herself to the Church of Lambeth England in 1921 and quickly undertook a resolution emerging from that conference variety of lay ministries with characteristic indicates that Underhill was heard What energy It was with the special resolve of a we do know is that as the 1930s went on committed lay person as well as the Underhill took her message of the need eloquence of a gifted writer that she was for the spiritual renewal of the clergy on able to regale the most senior cleric in the road In her magisterial Worship England and the symbolic head of the published in 1936 Underhill writes a Anglican Communion with these lines little Conference peevishly No record perhaps that or even The two things that the laity want from though Anglican priests are required to the priesthood are spiritual realism and say only two services a day Mattins and genuine love of souls God is the Evensong that too many of them perform interesting thing about religion and this duty by intention only and not by a people are hungry for God But only a serious commitment to the Daily Office priest whose life is soaked in prayer 2 sacrifice and love can by his own spirit of adoring worship help us to Underhill apprehend Him clergy the first woman to be invited to do so in began the offering Church of 1936 of retreats England she gave for In Underhill placed the responsibility to September two improve the spiritual lives of Anglican extraordinary lectures under the title The clergy squarely on the shoulders of the Parish Priest and the Life of Prayer at the episcopacy but she left the guess work Worcester Diocesan Clergy Convention at out of it The letter provided a number of Oxford The lectures were later published practical recommendations for the bishops in the Collected Papers of Evelyn

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12 THE HOUR Underhill now out of print 1 Despite from the working class and struggled in their short school before and after being drafted into lectures should join Michael Ramsey s Napoleon s army He was considered too The Christian Priest Today and Julia dull to complete seminary and he was Gatta s The Nearness of God as sterling very nearly denied ordination As a young Anglican contributions to the essential priest he was assigned to a small village bookshelf of pastoral ministry The Parish in eastern France and he spent his entire Priest and the Life of Prayer sharpens ministry 41 years there Through faithful the concerns of Underhill s letter to prayerful work Vianney was a conduit of Archbishop Lang and transposes her God s grace that transformed the village suggestions into the realm and grasp of and brought as many as 20 000 visitors a the average parish priest Rather than year to Vianney s small parish church excoriate she seeking his spiritual advice Despite a encourages and pleads with them While demanding schedule of pastoral work she takes pains to insist that prayer is not Vianney never failed to pray his Office purely instrumental she is clear that it is and spend an hour of contemplation after essential to true pastoral work each daily Mass This and only this relative The obscurity her priest s new life these audience of prayer his communion with God is not only his empowered the work of the cure of souls for which Vianney is known primary obligation to the Church it is also the only condition under which the A priest s life of prayer is neither abstract work of the Christian ministry can be nor obtuse While it may be hard to find properly done the time the essential tools for a life of prayer are close at hand and available to Underhill contends that it is not academic all the Eucharist personal prayer and acumen social graces or socio economic the class that qualifies a priest to be an agent uncompromising in this A priest must say of God s love in the parish and an agent Morning and Evening Prayer every day of God s self expression in the world in his or her parish church if possible Rather it is a devotion to prayer day in Such consistency will encourage devout and day out Her prime example is the parishioners in their own prayers and Cure d Ars Jean Vianney Vianney came inspire the respect of non Christians But Daily Office Underhill is

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13 THE HOUR the primary benefits of the consistent use her spiritual life Adoration is the only of the Daily Office are deeper still thing that properly orients our wills and Surely it is a very great thing that desires and twice every day the Christian minister toward Reality as it really is toward the must withdraw his attention from all the God who made all things and to Whom all details and demands which beset him things will return As such for Underhill feed adoration his prayer by reading and meditation of the Scriptures and yield therefore of God is our actions the essential preparation for all decent action to the influence of this sacred poetry Venite Te Deum Magnificat with its Underhill rounds out her lectures by dominant offering practical advice on how to extend mood of adoring and disinterested delight and multiply the prayers of the Church and her ministers more firmly and Underhill expounds on this point in consistently into the lives of the laity She Worship discusses the in and outs of small parish the Office is ideally the ordained prayer groups as one who has long been form within which the whole Church involved herself Most if not all of her performs wisdom is still pertinent However I from hour to hour that unceasing praise of God which is the suspect chief purpose of her existence It is the Corporation the Work of God as St Benedict approve of her firm conviction that the called it and is addressed to Him and door of the parish church must remain not to men Hence although many unlocked at all times and that everyone strands enter into it including those of must be made welcome to find the peace penitence and and consolation of prayer within the walls intercession its prevailing note is and of church buildings if church buildings are must be adoration not edification 3 to have any legitimate purpose at all But supplication the of Church Vermont Insurance would not is she wrong What is a bigger risk for the Adoration is essential and not just petition Church the destruction of her property or and what the judgement of her God for denying integrates activism and contemplation the refuge to lost souls What good will work of the Christian minister with his or insurance do us on that great and terrible intercession Adoration is

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14 THE HOUR Day of the Lord At the beginning of the third decade of what is shaping up to be another Like Archbishop Lang before him the tumultuous century it is still true that God current of is the interesting thing about religion and Canterbury is preparing to host the that people today are still hungry for God bishops of the Anglican Communion in the The purpose of God s Church will always summer of 2020 A whole cataphract of be to draw people into closer union with serious issues face the fifteenth Lambeth God Conference Not the least of which is the Communion and of the whole Church continued would do well to return to Underhill s Metropolitan existence of of the the See Anglican Ministers in the frequently Anglican Communion in its current configuration admonishment then We But another matter of the utmost concern cannot feed people spiritually if we a matter that is more foundational needs ourselves are emaciated We must not to be raised now just as before the forsake prayer as our primary duty and joy health of the prayer life of the Church and and consolation because as Underhill her clergy told her clergy retreatants true devotion can only be taught by the direct method Just as in the 1930s some are encouraging the Church s ministers to James Stambaugh focus on becoming entrepreneurs social Wynnewood Pennsylvania workers There and are community still many organizers consecrated philanthropists who lack spiritual realism 1 The lectures were reprinted as a in the ranks of the clergy So Underhill s pamphlet by Calvary Episcopal Church insistent reminder continues to ring true Pittsburgh in 1969 They can now be the real and truest work of the Church and found online her a http www anglicanlibrary org underhill Un foundation of prayer all our toil as derhillTheParishPriestandtheLifeofPrayer positive and important as much of it is pdf ministers is prayer Without will prove only to be a massive exercise in missing the point 2 3 Worship 118 114

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17 THE HOUR MASS FORMATION PUTTING THE EUCHARIST IN CONTEXT The eucharist in the indisputable words But in the public worship of parish of the Catechism of the Catholic Church churches in the West the eucharist is a is the source and summit of Christian centre without a perimeter a summit life No one no matter how much they which parishioners are expected to reach desire to introduce or restore other kinds with no climbing aid a river which flows of services to the regular worship life of no further than its own source The steep the church can deny the importance of slopes we must climb to reach the the Lord s Supper Throughout our earthly heavenly lives the sacrament of Holy Communion offering are faith charity forgiveness presents to us anew the opportunity to lay works of the Spirit Our prayer books down the burden of our sins upon the teach us as the Church catholic always heavenly altar the peak at the end of the has that the Holy Communion is to be path of Christlike living the peak we reach received in a context of deep personal when we have renounced self taken up reflection penitence and amendment of our crosses and followed him life Where is this context to be found in heights of the eucharistic parish churches where the eucharist is the As Anglicans we should be joyful that only regular service to be offered How since the Parish Communion movement are parishioners supposed to find their weekly celebration of the eucharist as the way onto the difficult path to Christ week central by week every week act of Sunday worship has become commonplace in our churches high and low alike The catholic norm Different denominations have different which typified the Church worldwide from ideas its founding at Pentecost has in the vast questions but all draw from the same majority of parishes in our communion toolkit each choosing to emphasize returned placing the sacrament in its different methods within a similar array of rightful place as the centre of Christian possibilities For Roman Catholics whose life churches have held Mass as the only about how to answer regular public service of worship far these

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18 THE HOUR longer than we Anglicans the most do not advertise it Private spiritual obvious aid to spiritual growth is private guidance is always available of course confession likewise for Lutherans and but most Anglicans see it as something to Eastern Christians to ask for in a time of crisis and not practice regular confession something to seek out on a regular basis who continue auricular while also more frequently retaining other Instead devotional to emphasized communal growth in faith contextualize their celebrations of the through communal worship coupled with eucharist In providing private confession the ability of individuals to reach God and especially in making it mandatory in through prayer on their own terms without the denominations which require it the the mediation of a clerk in holy orders worship services Anglican practice has churches of these traditions provide their faithful the opportunity to learn from their It confessors to pray to grow in faith and to communal worship and individual access live the to God that we find the main tool confessional box ideally goes beyond Anglicans use to help Christians follow the ritualistic of path to the communion table it is to this Forgive me Father and Ego te absolvo end among others that the Church has to the deeper questions of turning to given its flock the common prayer the Christ the means by which we become Daily Office to help them continually sincerely able to fall down before the Body profit more and more in the knowledge of of Christ and receive the sacrament in God and be the more inflamed with the penitence and faith bringing us to the full love of his true Religion It was part of the fellowship of his Body public spiritual practice of the Church well The conversation week by week in repetition is within worldwide Anglicanism emphasizes however private typically confession as a mandatory part after as a key aspect of the public worship of Catholic considered centuries a Reformation widely many between Pentecost and continues to be observed the it balance de means of spiritual growth not since the has for this been Eastern churches Church the commends Roman it to of monastics clergy and laity alike likewise preparation for all who intend to receive it has been retained and emphasized in the eucharist the majority of our churches Anglicanism for its effectiveness as a tool

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19 THE HOUR of spiritual growth The Daily Office is a one tries to make it a habit when one liturgy of prayer moral reflection and slips from the path it can be just as confession of difficult to get back into the habit as it was meditation upon the Scriptures it offers in to begin in the first place For some and a communal setting the opportunity of again I hold up my own hand even individual approach to godliness Its aim is remembering to make better Christians Christians who extemporaneous prayer every day is a can be sent forth into the world in the challenge done in the context to say their own morning mindful of their responsibility towards God and their neighbour and When churches provide the Daily Office return home in the evening thankful to as something to say or sing in community God for the blessings of the day and though worshippers have community penitent for any failings support in their daily prayer practices a group that can pull them back on the path The Daily Office then is one of the key and a social as well as a devotional aids Anglican churches can provide to reason to join in daily prayer Pusey help devotional House in Oxford emphasizes this by examination holding not only a daily Mattins with a parishioners preparation and necessary to do the moral receive the Holy short Low Mass following but afterwards Communion From this perspective it is offering a collegial breakfast for all in thus especially disappointing that the attendance Oxbridge colleges often offer Daily Office has disappeared from the students similar social opportunities to public liturgical life of the Church While support them in daily prayer such as clergy in my province are still bound to common room drinks after Evensong It say Mattins and Evensong daily for most seems to be working for them college laypeople the Daily Office is non existent chaplains Those serious enough about their faith to student attendance report increasingly strong have tried praying it privately report to me a tale I know all too well the discipline But it s not only the opportunity of needed to keep up the Daily Office is fellowship which brings people to love the initially difficult to find over a long period Daily Office and how it shapes their lives it s hard to maintain no matter how much when they have the chance to experience

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20 THE HOUR it in community appreciated for The services themselves in are Christians take comfort from knowing that the public prayer is being offered even if they otherwise moribund attendance figures of themselves cannot be present for it the Church of England Evensong is one of the few signs of consistent growth The Daily Office is a liturgy for our time albeit mostly in cathedrals Even smaller a liturgy for all time Its rhythms call Anglican encouraging Christians inward it brings the whole stories to tell Ben Crosby reported initial community of Christ together to be there success in establishing the Daily Office in prayer for one another constantly while on summer placement at Christ Taiz for example is not just a trendy Church Lead South Dakota a church style of music and worship its global in a denominationally diverse town of spread is a sign of a deep longing among 3 000 with an average Sunday attendance churchgoers regular and irregular for a of 40 People have been really excited liturgical structure and rhythm within the about it he wrote we have folks who tradition of repeated daily prayer and song started coming every day or even twice to daily Several people have mentioned stretching back to the earliest days of the to me just how meaningful it is for them Church Likewise Choral Evensong s How much peace and comfort they find growth in England is not as some cynics opening and closing their day with prayer would say merely the result of a desire to parishes have which it belongs a tradition hear a free concert the music was after Urban geography and space availability all just as scintillating thirty years ago have unfortunately limited the growth of when attendance was at such a low ebb my own church s group which says that BBC Radio 4 reported that attendees weekday Mattins in the centre of Berlin at services would find themselves alone where my church is the only organized practically listening to this marvelous Anglican presence serving a city of 3 8 music million Despite this many people on especially in times like the present when Sunday have expressed their appreciation the world seems impossibly broken and for what we do and a desire for us to praying seems the only option left climate continue on their behalf even though they change and the present White House themselves are unable to join us administration may have as much to do Prayer draws people in

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21 THE HOUR with the growth of Evensong as the quality developed liturgically as well as of English choirs didactically for the office to be effective as intended in growing participants closer to Is this surprising Many within the church the divine Silence is an important tool seem to have been caught off guard by more important than good music and the growth of interest in Morning and available Evening Prayer But it shouldn t be a maintaining a choir So too can be gentle surprise of course faithful Christians wish reminders of God s presence at weekday to be drawn closer to God Many Mattins in my church we now increasingly Anglicans do find the office a tremendous both open and close our office with a comfort when it is offered But I admit reminder of Matthew 18 20 where two or this enthusiasm is not felt universally I three are gathered together in my name have talked to parishioners disappointed there am I in the midst of them at the with opening scripture sentence and in the the occasions when my own chaplaincy has replaced one of its two without the difficulties of Prayer of St Chrysostom at the end regular Sunday masses with a service The When the skill is developed however and weakness of the Church with a monotony the office given its proper place in the of masses and no regular communal communal worship life of the Church the observance of the office may be that opportunity given to parishioners to grow some parishioners are unaccustomed and their spiritual practice is incalculable It resistant to services of the word without bears observing that though the Church the eucharist however much participating gave us the Daily Office it was God who in them may enrich their experience of the gave us prayer itself He gave us prayer sacrament when comes When as the most important way we can open parishioners so deeply the our hearts to him and as a way in which eucharist it is because the presence of he opens his presence to us The Daily Christ in the sacrament draws them to it Office is the Church s way of teaching the but effective participation in the Daily faithful to make that opening in their Office demands a desire and an ability to hearts for him Praying well together helps engage with the presence of God in word us pray well in private to grow in alone This is a distinct skill which must be closeness to God by prayer even when without the Holy Communion it desire

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22 THE HOUR away from the communal celebration of most important service the church can the office offer but it demands its proper context That context is prayer Prayer without This growth toward God is the essence of ceasing prayer that grows us in our the path of ascent which brings us to knowledge of God through the word and God s heavenly temple where we with through pure hearts receive the sacrament of the achieved only with two or three readings eucharist The Prayer Book s exhortations and five minutes of intercessions in the to communion with their exegesis of Paul mass of the catechumens on Sundays concern with The Daily Office is the guide that teaches towards the faithful to know how God is there in neighbour and absolution But when in their lives every day it gives them the the epistles Paul exhorts us to examine context they need to truly experience and ourselves in preparation to receive the appreciate the gifts of Christlike living and bread and the cup he is as much self sacrifice before the altar when the concerned with examining ourselves for eucharist is celebrated We fall down faith as he is for sin Christ s summary of kneeling and receive the sacrament but the law reminds us that our duty to God in truth we are standing higher than we and our duty to neighbour are not two but possibly can alone Christ bringing us to one one him helps us up to the heavenly summit cannot grow in the love of God without the peak we should strive for every day also growing in love of neighbour and prayer being our helper repentance great themselves mainly amendment commandment that meditation This vice versa Self examination is the start of this the root from which all good and Daphne Preston Kendal honest prayer springs the root from which Berlin Germany we find the way to live in love and charity with the world and with each other It requires meditation in the word of God That is why the office praying through the scripture is so important Of course the Holy Communion is the cannot be

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25 THE HOUR A DEFENSE OF CRANMER S OFFICE As far as the revisers of Morning and and catechetical work of the Office upon Evening Prayer in the 1979 Book of those praying it Common Prayer were concerned flexibility was the primary objective While This is not to put it mildly a terribly the basic structure of the Daily Office of popular position especially among the the 1928 Prayer Book remained in place liturgists guild Cranmer s Daily Office is the absolute castigated as too penitential in focus and profusion of new canticles suffrages characterized by a lack of variety long collects and Scripture sentences This sections of psalmody with no particular provided much more potential variety but relation to the time of day or season of the also required the officiant to make many church more decisions Suddenly the question readings And all of it the critique goes is How based revision should included one pray an the Office year on a and faulty lengthy scripture sixteenth century became a pressing one as it was now reconstruction of early Christian prayer entirely possible for two people to pray the practices which incorrectly understood Office entirely rubrically yet have it look the meditative reading of the entire Bible dramatically different and recitation of the entire Psalter as characteristic of all primitive Christian The Prayer Book itself offers some daily prayer rather than of monasticism guidance with a table of suggested specifically However it seems to me that canticles various religious associations if we rightly understand the theological within the Episocpal Church have their and ascetical function of the Office as the own recommendations as well But I will Church s objective daily offering of praise now offer an answer of my own one and thanksgiving to God a means should pray the Office by conforming it as through which we encounter the saving far as possible to the use of the historic Word of God in Scripture Cranmer s Anglican reform of the old breviary has much to Prayer Book tradition exemplified by the 1662 Book of Common Prayer This mode best fosters the ascetic commend itself to us today

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26 THE HOUR The Office first and foremost is an the Cranmerian Office can be best objective understood sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God in which the church on earth through the Spirit participates Central to the Cranmerian Office is a alongside the communion of saints in the commitment to the formative power of the ascended Christ s worship of the Father Word of God prayed and spoken one giving voice to the whole cosmos worship which combines a catholic commitment to of God Any responsible treatment of the the Office as the church s public praise Office with a Reformational emphasis on the must begin with exactly this theocentric focus It is not of course that Christian s God somehow needs our prayers to Scripture Crucially we see here not only bolster God s divine self esteem but the Office as ascetical discipline but also rather that praise and adoration are the as catechesis that is the point of the proper response of a creature to the Office is not only to offer prayers and creator and especially of the redeemed praise to God because it is right to do so creature to the redeemer However as but also to be instructed and edified by with all Christian worship this ultimately the specific texts that are read and theocentric focus must be held together prayed Thus far more than either pre with Office Reformation breviaries or contemporary nonetheless is in some sense for us It reforms Cranmer s Office is steeped in was developed by the Church out of texts Scripture inspired by the Spirit not only to praise psalmody canticles and readings one God but also to shape us into the sort of will find that the opening and concluding creatures who can love and praise God sentences much of the text of the preces aright And this is where the question of and responses and many of the motifs of the Office as ascesis and catechesis the collects are straightforwardly scriptural takes center stage Asceticism might not as well Not to mention that the older be a popular word in most Episcopal lectionaries covered nearly the entire circles but it is precisely as a mode of Bible in a year far more than the current long term ordered patient even boring 1979 Daily Office Lectionary with the spiritual formation and instruction that the entire Psalter repeated every thirty days human work of the Office and especially Key to the success of this Office is a the awareness that the in depth Aside involvement from the with lengthy

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27 THE HOUR commitment to letting Scripture work on Scripture our own Cranmer s Office used you which is to say to letting the Spirit a thirty day invariable Psalter and to be work on you soaking in long lessons and sure lengthy portions of the Psalter until appointed for a given day may not always Scripture s words become your words seem seasonally appropriate However Scripture s prayers your prayers There the inclusion of apparently dissonant are few better methods to achieve this psalms e g Ps 88 in Eastertide forces than constant repetition and this is us towards a more textured and nuanced exactly what Cranmer s Office does appreciation of the church year instead of this means that the psalms relegating certain moods or emotional The Office does more than just throw a expressions to certain seasons great deal of Scripture at us however as its framers recognized that it is easy to The Readings It is admittedly easy to get become overwhelmed in long sections of lost in long readings but this is where the psalms and readings It begins with invariable use of certain canticles is confession because this offering of praise crucially and thanksgiving to almighty God is doxological and Christological lens for serious work which we can engage in only reading Scripture as a whole Cranmer as redeemed creatures The penitential appointed the Te Deum or the Benedicite opening sentences help to rouse the in Lent and the Benedictus to be said conscience pushing us to throw ourselves after the readings at Morning Prayer and wholly on God s mercy it is here where I the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis at must add a protest against the 1979 s Evening Prayer Saying these canticles deletion of the phrase and there is no immediately after each reading orients our health in us from the Confession which engagement with Scripture around praise we ask for and receive in the Confession of God and encourages us to interpret and Absolution proper The Invitatory in them in a Christological manner That is the morning solemnly calls us both to these invariable canticles remind us that praise and to careful attention to God s we read all of Scripture with thanksgiving Word Then come the psalms where our as the revelation of the saving work of task is to make the praises laments and God in Jesus Christ It is hard to imagine petitions of God s people as recorded in a more appropriate response to the helpful they provide us a

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28 THE HOUR reading of the Gospel that record of the Office to the church year and to the Holy life and passion of Jesus Christ than the Communion Song of Simeon Lord now lettest thou collects which follow align the Office with thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes the time of day since the invariable have seen thy salvation collects have been abandoned the 1979 service the invariable has added new additions such as the Here is where the profusion of canticle Phos hilaron and the lucenarium service choices in the 1979 Prayer Book disturbs to do the same thing The 1979 by the logic of the earlier Prayer Book contrast requires at least one collect tradition rather than serving as stable which need not be the Collect of the Day touchstones Christological and a second collect for mission There is interpretation of Scripture the canticles no longer any requirement that the Daily can suddenly vary just as much as the Office be tied to the church year and the readings can and the task for the officiant Eucharist and while there appears to be becomes an attempt at a weekly cycle there are no for finding the specific canticles appropriate to the specific readings rather clear instructions given than allowing one to be drawn by the canticles to reflect on Scripture in light of And alas None of this works quite so well the Incarnation if the various Cranmerian commitments Office the are softened or The rejection of The Prayers The inclusion of the Lord s rejected Prayer presumably needs no defense but invariable canticles and especially the Cranmerian suffrages more or less invariable Gospel canticles in the 1979 Suffrages A in the 1979 BCP are book strikes me as a particular misstep absolute jewels tiny petitions generally We seem moreover to have thoroughly drawn from the psalms which pack an abandoned enormous punch in just a few words To emphasis on the engagement of God s truly my people with the whole Bible in worship in experience years of practice years which allowing the omission of psalms deemed the inclusion of alternative suffrages unsavory or difficult we also produced makes it more difficult to acquire The use Daily Office Lectionary which in two years of the Collect of the Day connects the only covers about half of the Old appreciate them takes in altogether of Cranmer s Reformational

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29 THE HOUR Testament consider this oft maligned answer to the question of how one ought to pray the Keeping certain elements invariable aids Daily Office As the 1662 s concluding the encourages sentence puts it may the grace of our memorization making it yet easier for the Lord Jesus Christ the love of God and Officeto sink into one s bones It also the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with helps to focus one s attention to the us all evermore Amen ease of use and variable elements the psalmody the lessons and the Collect of the Day rather Ben Crosby than overwhelming one with massive New Haven Connecticut amounts of novelty One is freed by a sort of holy familiarity even boredom to attend to the inspired words of the psalms and to receive the news of salvation in Jesus Christ from the lessons This is why the old Anglican Office remains an unsurpassed reformed catholic Office it combines doxology and ascetic catechesis in a way which allows us to be formed to rightly worship God and to be edified by the words of Holy Scripture Of course in the end this can only be experienced rather than argued for so I ve appended a way to rubrically conform the 1979 Daily Office to the 1662 to the greatest extent possible with some concessions made to the peculiarities of the earlier American Prayer Book tradition It happens to be the way that I pray the Office but this Epiphanytide I would encourage you to prayerfully s e e n e x t

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THE HOUR 30 MORNING PRAYER OPENING SENTENCE FROM LENT SECTION CONFESSION ABSOLUTION PRECES FULL VENITE AS INVITATORY PSALM PSALMODY FROM 30 DAY PSALTER OLD TESTAMENT READING TE DEUM BENEDICITE IN LENT AND OPTIONALLY IN ADVENT PASCHA NOSTRUM DURING EASTER WEEK NEW TESTAMENT READING BENEDICTUS EVENING PRAYER CREED OPENING SENTENCE FROM LENT SECTION LORD S PRAYER CONFESSION ABSOLUTION SUFFRAGES A PRECES COLLECT OF THE DAY PSALMODY FROM 30 DAY PSALTER COLLECT FOR PEACE OLD TESTAMENT READING FROM COLLECT FOR GRACE ALTERNATE YEAR PRAYER FOR THE PRESIDENT OF THE MAGNIFICAT UNITED STATES AND ALL IN CIVIL GOSPEL READING AUTHORITY NUNC DIMITTIS PRAYER FOR CLERGY AND PEOPLE CREED PRAYER FOR ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS LORD S PRAYER OF MEN SUFFRAGES A GENERAL THANKSGIVING COLLECT OF THE DAY PRAYER OF ST CHRYSOSTOM COLLECT FOR PEACE CONCLUDING SENTENCE 2 COR 13 14 COLLECT FOR AID AGAINST PERILS PRAYER FOR THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND ALL IN CIVIL AUTHORITY PRAYER FOR CLERGY AND PEOPLE PRAYER FOR ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN GENERAL THANKSGIVING PRAYER OF ST CHRYSOSTOM CONCLUDING SENTENCE 2 COR 13 14

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32 THE HOUR INTERVIEW WITH JAYAN KOSHY On December 1 2019 seven Minnesotans Jayan Koshy Yeah so it was in late and six Michiganers committed to praying 2018 actually that I started floating the Daily Office for the coming year and around the idea of having daily Morning to perform Prayer somewhere in the Twin Cities it corporately about once a month Thus metro It was something that I had been was born the Society of St Nicholas practicing on my own for a while but Ferrar of noticed that there was no consistent to public service of the Daily Office in the practicing and promoting the Daily Office diocese I had hoped to launch it at St Members commit to praying Morning and John the Evangelist in Advent 2018 but Evening Prayer daily receiving Holy didn t get it off the ground in time But Eucharist weekly and helping others after Epiphany this year I started publicly understand and share in these classic praying Morning Prayer on weekdays at forms of Anglican worship The SSNF is my parish Then you and I began having the brainchild of Jayan Koshy and Tony conversations about what it would look Hunt both in the diocese of Minnesota like to spread this practice to the wider This is an edited version of an interview a church conversation really between these two on theoretically be praying the Daily Office the reason for the society For more already and they re just not We have information visit the website at diocesan ordinaries who aren t invested in meeting together SSNF Episcopalians to an who are do association dedicated Because all clergy should it and don t hold their clergy to this stnicholasferrar com standard practice Tony Hunt So the Society of St TH You said you were doing it on your Nicholas own what was your motivation to have it Ferrar Tell me about beginnings in the early months of 2019 its be something that was public at the church

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33 THE HOUR JK There are two parts of that motivation It s important to the Anglican tradition but One was that the Daily Office is intended that doesn t mean it s simple and easy I to how have fallen off the wagon many times and transformative it has been for me Coming it s helpful to have people that are from a fundamentalist background I didn t committed to this practice with you as an know how to read Scripture in a catholic accountability structure We wanted to way through the lense of the tradition build that into the structure of the Society be public The other was And this cardinal practice of Anglican spirituality reading through Scripture in TH So what you re saying is that the conjunction with the Psalms with the focus shouldn t be on making people feel canticles and the prayers of the church ashamed or like they are failing at prayer provides but more on us being in this together a hermeneutic which has transformed how I understand the Bible and has nourished my faith in profound JK Right This is a mode of ways encouragement not enforcement TH Moving specifically to the Society of TH What would you say to a lay person St Nicholas Ferrar why is there a focus who might be interested but thinks that on organizing the chapters into cohorts the Daily Office is a clerical discipline Why can t someone join the society even that s just for priests and spiritual heroes if they re by themselves What would you say to the person who might not have JK That s an understandable impression anyone else to pray the Office with but since still wants to join required to say the Office But from the clergy have historically been framing of the Book of Common Prayer JK I would first point them to the structure the intention was that all people would of the Office This is something you can have access to it The intention was to do alone but the framers of the prayer bring this practice out of the monasteries book wanted you to do this in community and out of the cathedral chapters into the But parishes and peoples homes So this for cohorts also provide a support structure This is not any easy practice to maintain you this is for every Anglican

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34 THE HOUR TH It s also perhaps an unfortunate understand to be Anglican But we have outgrowth of the perceived intensity of the people who care interested in forming Office that laity keep away from it At least chapters in the Anglican Church of in the Episcopal Church it s sometimes Canada there could easily be other seems that laity think that they can chapters in other provinces The Society vicariously experience spirituality through is intended to minister to the Communion their priests And so people aren t actively encouraging us to maintain and promote participating in the faith because they this part of our tradition outsource their prayer life to an external factor a priest a bishop TH Yeah as long as its in conformity with the rubrics of the prayer book of that JK And it doesn t help that the 1979 province then it s totally fine Which leads Prayer Book is so complicated in its to the unfortunate issue that because layout it s not super user friendly This most pray the Daily Office alone they barrier to navigating the prayer book adds tend to be a little eccentric with it either to this mystique that makes it seem like the hyper reformed or hyper catholic end this is for the clergy that I then participate of Anglicanism and create these in by proxy But our hope with the Society monstrosities that just take this bit from is to break down those barriers and help the missal and this bit from this prayer people understand that this is something book and they put it all together because that can inform their spiritual lives directly no one else is there to do anything with them What we re trying to do is renew it TH Now is this only for people in the as a public office and if it s going to be a Episcopal church this Society public office it is the church s worship It s not an individual s worship And it s not JK This is specifically for people in the saying that you can t have individual Anglican Communion that is Anglican prayer practices in addition to this That s churches in communion with the See of generally what s understood by the three Canterbury We wanted to restrict it to the fold rule that there s personal prayer Communion as an ecclesiological move to there s make clear that this is part of the Anglican Eucharist And personal prayer is totally tradition and stake out what we fine Pray the Angelus pray a rosary the Office that s fine whatever and there s the

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35 THE HOUR JK There are several wells of inspiration spirituality It s just the beginning It s just to be found in Ferrar s life Something that caring for the soil of your heart really speaks to our situation is that his project was one of retrieval and renewal TH What would you say if anything to After the wanton destruction of the people who are approaching the Daily monasteries and the obliteration of the Office or the Society very tentatively like religious life in the Church of England his this sounds like something I might like to community at Little Gidding developed a do but I don t know if it s for me rule of communal life that was centered around prayer and the recitation of the JK Try it out We ve structured the psalms This speaks to the spirit of Society intentionally to be only a year s holding onto something in our past that commitment at a time This is not religious has been integral to our faith and holding life you re not becoming an oblate and it in trust for the rest of the church He is making life vows You re committing with the example par excellence of somebody a group of people that you re going to do whose life was formed by the Daily Office your best to uphold this practice There s More than that however he was unusual no consequences if you fail And that s not in the manner in which he was formed by to say that you shouldn t take it seriously the Office in the intensity and fidelity in but which he adhered to that practice So in attempting this practice and you have taking him as our patron my hope is that everything to gain we can embody countercultural some nothing to lose by that TH And sometimes it s just that nudge practices that even against the slings and that ll put you in the right place Like I arrows of puritan aggression or capitalist prayed the office on and off for intense apathy or what have you that against and less intense periods for several years these can until one year for Lent I decided to forget cultivate these communities of prayer fasting and instead pray Morning and which is what parishes are supposed to Evening Prayer every day And by doing be So Ferrar shows us how the Daily that for 40 days I felt liberated to do it It Office is an asceticism which tills the soil felt more natural it felt like something for other seeds of discipline and something that I could do and because of resistance in have these forces investment of you we of

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THE HOUR that one period of time I ve been able to of prayer is completely beyond our ability mostly maintain it perfectly relatively speaking ever since JK And there s two things that help on that front One it doesn t take that long JK I think habit habitus is a good way of Like the morning office takes 20 minutes thinking about this That when you commit if you do it by a pretty standard usage to it for a time you might find yourself and that s the longest one Two you don t getting used to it being a part of your life have to do it at specific times It helps to and maybe even craving it Since starting have a regular time that you do it but it s daily Morning Prayer at St John s I really not like in Islam where there are where miss not being able to pray in community you have an hour window to do this when I can t do it I ve had a horrible cold prayer It is much more flexible So if you this week and I ve still tried to come every work nights pray Morning Prayer when day even if I can t pray the responses just you re starting your day whenever that is to be with other people as I m praying and pray Evening Prayer when you get You start to get used to it in a really home from work Just carve out 15 20 edifying way So give yourself the chance minutes twice a day to find a couple other people that are willing to try this out with you and give it a TH I m reminded of a charming story of try for a year Conrad Noel a priest in the Church of England who was known for wearing his TH And if you re looking at your day as cassock and sitting and doing his breviary already fixed your schedule as already at the pub while having a pint out among fixed it s going to be tough to just plug it the people That might not be a desirous in But if you make time then it has a thing every time but you don t have to much higher chance of sticking And become a monk to do this and you don t people do this all the time for other things even have to be holy at first It might they want to do If people want to start accidentally make you holier but you don t going to the gym they get up at 5 every have to be a saint going into it When I day so they can do it And we ll completely was a Pentecostal it was fairly common change our dietary habits but we think for regular lay people to spend an hour that a 45 minute to an hour daily practice reading the Bible every day It s not 36

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THE HOUR something that s beyond an average Christian practice but it does take intention It can t just accidentally happen You can t just want to do this and have it just fall into place it takes intention JK Finally it s also worth pointing out that there s nothing inherently Anglo Catholic about the Daily Office If you look at Sunday practices throughout the last few centuries you ll find that Morning Prayer was a staple of low church identity These days a lot of people who are invested in the Daily Office are high church or AngloCatholic but that s not a feature of the Daily Office that s a feature of a population who is invested in tradition and invested in maintaining a traditional distinctiveness in their religious context But s it s not a feature of the Daily Office or the Society of St Nicholas Ferrar The Daily Office was and is truly something for the whole church Jayan Koshy St Paul Minnesota Tony Hunt Minneapolis Minnesota Lovingly transcribed by Nora Poole Minneapolis Minnesota Painstakingly edited by Caleb Roberts Champaign Illinois 37

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39 THE HOUR HIDDEN EFFECT GEOGRAPHY AND THE DAILY OFFICE It would only be too typical of a certain The way our cities infrastructure is kind of Anglican literature to collect a designed is the result of a hierarchy of series of essays on prayer and leave the priorities of guiding design principles the reader feeling chided as if they just assumptions of which are not neutral need to try harder Priests are already Where we live and work how we get expected to do everything it seems Now around how long it takes these are we have to pray too It may indeed be determined that we need to try harder but any serious boards zoning committees city councils investigation into why as a church we find and organizations funded by CEOs and it difficult to maintain a public Daily Office developers And they effect whether we needs to focus not on individual choices could reasonably expect parishes to come but at the structural elements in place that together to pray in advance by planning work against a life of prayer in parish life Modern capitalism actively battles against As it stands our priests and parishioners our spiritual lives Its discipline creates a tend to be scattered throughout multiple submissive labor class that will prioritize cities that are not where they worship on work above all other life pursuits for fear Sundays They commute in for worship of losing what little stability they have And But they do so in part because our cities as the rise of the gig economy shows the very ground we live on have been even what little stability we had is being systematically taken away and given to the one with ten automobile since World War II Our cities millions are haunted by rail systems buried designed around the beneath feet of accrued asphalt We see Discipline works best when it fades into glimpses of these networks when the the background of daily life when it can streets crack and expose the remnants guide how we must spend our time where We live in worlds that have seen decades we must live where the street lights are upon decades of underfunded public The built environment is a planned transit environment It did not just happen infrastructure despite these all being bicycle and pedestrian

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40 THE HOUR wildly more equitable safe and efficient homes and make pancakes on Shrove modes of transportation Which is not Tuesday even to mention the deleterious effects that automobiles have had on our global Our church has been complicit in this health and climate unspacing however One of the more telling examples lies in the number of The suburbs were built as part of an parishes that have sold their rectories intense legal intentional effort to exclude Our church decided that geographic black people from the growing economy proximity to the center of parish ministry Red lining racial home covenants and no longer mattered for priests The corrupt banking all worked in tandem with priestly the white flight and urban neglect that compatible with the American dream and ensued Cars are expensive And in a with wealth building through real estate system that necessitates car ownership So we divested from our immediate commuting automatically makes it so that surroundings our neighbors and sent the an undesirable class cannot live where clergy out to live like the rest of us vocation was seen to be driving is a necessity The suburbs were built for the car for the commute for the But rectories did not only serve the clergy commuters Even moderately sized parishes in living memory have had apartments for curates The distance between spaces increased and sextons The mere fact of their Where we work is farther from where we existence suggests not only was it once live which is farther from where we get deemed important for parishes to be groceries which is farther from where we settled in their place but also that a worship The idea of a geographic parish thriving ecclesial life cannot solely be the is a relic in such a world But there is no responsibility of the clergy escape really from the inherent limits of a parish building Even where our It is little wonder that it is nie impossible to parishioners are spread throughout a sustain a public Daily Office at the parish region the center of active ministry and We have so conformed our parish life to life is rightfully the gathering space It s our social life that it would prove an where we operate food shelves or make unreasonable ask to demand that a priest undercrofts available for those without arrive at 7am for Morning Prayer

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41 THE HOUR then drive 40 minutes home after Evening practice Rubrical freedom has meant a Prayer at say 5 30 Besides it has never precipitous drop in Office performance been the case that every single parish could sustain such a practice We at The What I m saying about Hour have no interest in appealing to environment supposed golden ages where everything Stambaugh s essay in particular Underhill was better We do not need to return to recognized that only an entire shift in a primitive practice from which we have priorities would be able to allow priests to fallen But we can reorient our priorities to develop their spiritual lives And only by a desired end developing their spiritual lives would they connects the with built James be prepared adequately labor in the care of souls To reiterate the point if it is the In the opening essay Caleb stated that case that few parishes and few priests part of the problem is our collective practice a public Daily Office and we fantasy that tweaking liturgies will yield contend it is it will not do simply to keep regular observance of the Daily Office If commentary on the surface level of we can just design the right office then I ll interrogating individual choices though in pray Daphne Preston Kendal set the the Office in the context of the Eucharist attention to the life of the Church s wherein both reinforce and sustain each prayers by the convinced may be able to other the Office confessions preparing us shift the dial Though even there the for the seriousness of the Mass Ben Society of St Nicholas Ferrar has come Crosby believes that deviance from the into being in the conviction that only formerly mutual support can truly begin to address standard Anglican Office structure has made for poorly formed immediate future only individual the contemporary situation communicants The editors would suggest alongside him that the proliferation of Tract 84 of the Tracts for the Times set options in the 79 BCP has had the out opposite effect than the one desired CLERGYMAN OF THE CHURCH OF Making it easier for everyone to have an ENGLAND BE NOW BOUND TO HAVE Office MORNING AND EVENING PRAYERS that closely resembles their personal piety has not strengthened its a case for WHETHER DAILY IN HIS PARISH CHURCH A

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42 THE HOUR It proceed by way of first examining out of place in this church as it might first Scripture then rubrics and canon law and appear finally standard divines It has long been the case that The Episcopal Church does One of the most important things that will not have a canon requiring clergy to need to be done for the future of ministry perform it It would likely be a fruitless is a geographical reorientation Having exercise and one a bit too strongarmed to convinced ourselves to allow clerics to attempt to make a case that Episcopalian participate in the American Dream a new clergy should offer the Daily Office The attention to our land will both facilitate a practice has just not been there Though it stronger corporate worship life and help could be pointed out the Prayer Book itself us unequivocally calls it Daily Morning and suburban racial project Willie James Evening Prayer and moreover says Daily Jennings has more to say about this in his Morning and Evening Prayer as set forth talk Can White People Be Saved in this Book are the regular services make sure to check out the Q A appointed for public worship in the Church Because parish life is not solely the pg 13 italics added The standard purview of the ordained not only will we commentaries note that the conservative need to reconsider rebuilding rectories nature of the Daily Office revisions denote but we should be encouraging members an intention of continuity with former to move closer to where they worship so Offices One could go so far as to point as better to participate in the social and out that Canon IV 1 H 8 says clergy must civic life of their neighborhood As the refrain from habitual neglect of public essay from Kenneth Leech points out the worship and of the Holy Communion quiet seeds of fascism lie in the living differentiating between Holy Communion rooms of isolated neighborhoods This is and public worship according to the not even yet a full defense of rectories order and use of the Church But we are but it is a first step in building a larger not canon lawyers and are not suggesting case people start calling bishops about such things What s important to note for our purposes though is that what we are saying in these pages are not nearly so correct our participation in the

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THE HOUR A new task implied by this issue that has come to occupy the minds of the editors here at The Hour is the question of time What are the core responsibilities of ordained life What constitutes the vocation How do priests spend their time To what extent are demands on their time the result of the expectations of their parishes And to what extent are they the result of cultural political and economic formation It is this topic of how clergy are forced to spend their time to which our next issue will be dedicated 43

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