Praying the Office of the Hours — Friday 23 August 6pm-7:30

Praying the Office of the Hours is the third, and last, in our series “Who Taught You to Pray: Contemplative Strategies for Enriching Your Prayer Life.” Prayer is a skill that doesn’t come easily, or intinctively, to everyone. The self-discipline of spending time with God each day, can often be reinforced by techniques that the Church has developed over centuries. In the first two sessions we covered the construction and use of Prayer Beads; and the contemplative, focussed reading of Scripture passages known as “Lectio Divina”. Like those, the Office of the Hours aspires to reinforce “prayer without ceasing”. Specific times of day, or specific daily events, are used as triggers or reminders to enter into deeper, formalized prayer and worship.

Although it was developed to its fullest in monasteries and convents, where religious dedicates could prioritize structured prayer over other demands on their time, reformers including Luther and Cranmer retained and reshaped the daily office into forms that could accommodate the constraints of working secular life, while still providing ordinary laypeople with deep personal prayerful connection with God. These adapted offices appear in hymnals and prayer books of the reformed church; and individuals who find this strategy works for them, are able to adopt less abridged, and more frequent, forms of the mediaeval offices. This Friday, we will review what the ancient offices were, how they have been preserved and adapted, the rules and liturgies that they encompassed, and additional formalized prayers that fall outside the actual Hours.