LITURGY OF THE HOURS

From another blog...

Renewal Through the Liturgy of the Hours

When I bought a copy of the Book of Common Prayer in 1999, I discovered the Liturgy of the Hours, the Church’s ancient form of worship. Even as an evangelical Christian at the time, praying the Liturgy of the Hours just made sense, especially since it struck me as highly Scriptural. I continued praying the Office in the Episcopal form until I became Catholic in 2004, although occasionally I still use the Episcopal form (I still use my old, well-worn, copy of the Book of Common Prayer as an option for my classroom prayers too).

The Liturgy of the Hours always provides a good rhythm to my day. Jennifer and I tend to pray modified forms of both Morning and Evening Prayer. The Liturgy of the Hours provides plenty of prayers, Scripture readings, psalms, and reflections, and is a perfect way to orient my life around sacred time (the Church Year) as opposed to secular time. Like all good things, I have sometimes taken the Liturgy of the Hours for granted, but lately I have almost craved my morning and evening formal prayer. I don’t have a lot of deep thoughts tonight, or anything particularly controversial to post about, just to give a shout out to one of the Church’s great treasures (available online at universalis.org)

My response...

Although some, The Prayer Book Society and others, would argue that the prayer book you bought is not a real Book of Common Prayer. An authorized BCP would by the 1928 Book of Common Prayer or the Canadian 1962 BCP. ECUSA broke with tradition when it created the 1979 prayer book and thus it cannot be called a genuine BCP. Anyhow, the same offices can be found in the Roman Catholic text, “The Book of Catholic Prayer”. This is the prayer book of the Anglican-Use Roman Catholic churches.

I’m glad to hear you journeyed home. I too “swam the Tiber”.

I too still fine myself attracted to historic Anglican liturgies and prayer sources. I recently found a new prayer book in the tradition language, although I tend to be drawn to contemporary prayer forms: “The St. Ambrose Prayer Book” 456 pages, Lancelot Andrewes Press. It contains a Morning and Evening office and many other treasures. Another book I recently came across is: “An Anglican Prayer Book” 220 pages, Preservation Press of the Prayer Book Society of the U.S.A. This manual contains Morning and Evening Prayer in contemporary form, plus a lot more from the BCP. I believe this was “transformed” by the recently late Dr. Peter Toon.

Keep praying those Hours. Pax tecum.