This is my own pattern of offices, which is a threefold form. This form is built of a Prologue Office of Praise, a Holy Office of Silence, and a Daily Office of Readings. This can be summarized as, respectively, set-prayer, silence, and scripture. Most everything is chanted.
What this reflects is “devout experimentation” within Anglican tradition in which, informed by my study of Martin Thornton’s theology and inspired by his manifold insights, I have sought to update the threefold Regula given Benedictine, Cranmerian, and contemporary spiritual influences amid the post-Christendom and media-drenched conditions of today’s Catholic Anglican pastoral reality. Description follows below with the caveat that such explanations always read more complicated than they are in actual practice.
MORNING
First is the Prologue Office of Praise. If I do nothing else in the morning because of time, I pray at least this Office, which takes ten minutes to chant. It is a glorious surrender to God through seven ancient and powerful prayers of the Church, which are teeming with true orthodox doctrine and which “praise him for his mighty acts; praise him for his excellent greatness” (Ps 150:2), giving ascetical emphasis to the primordial God the Father. This Office raises our eyes to transcendent Ultimate Reality. (And it is excellent also as prologue to the Mass.)
Second, and immediately following the Prologue Office commences a Holy Office of Silence, through 30 minutes of Centering Prayer. Derived by Cistercian monks from The Cloud of Unknowing, it is a means to live-into, and hence mysteriously embrance, the holy space cleared by the Prologue Office. (For more on Centering Prayer, see this PDF). Centering Prayer as a whole cultivates presence with God in his incarnate glory: akin to Moses’ “Here I am” at the Burning Bush (Ex 3:4) or Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament; an ascetical emphasis, then, on the expressive God the Son, who reveals the Father. Heaven and earth are joined and we give our heart to God in love.
Third is the morning form of the Daily Office of Readings, directly after the Holy Office of Silence. After praise and silence comes devotional attentiveness to the movements of God Immanent through the rhythms of Psalms, Canticles and Lessons. Here we are listening to inspired, authoritative Scripture: hence the ascetical emphasis shifts to the unitive God the Holy Spirit, who leads us to God the Son. “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” (Jn 16:13.)
Three notes about the Daily Office of Readings in particular:
- in essence it is Archbishop Cranmer’s Office and conforming to the 1662 BCP. There are slight modifications: moving the Collect of the Day to first (having already moved the opening Preces to the Prologue Office of Praise), and settling on a uniform Collect for Mission as the third collect. Overall in the scheme of the 1979 BCP, this form is Rite I.
- I chant the entire Daily Office except the Lessons. For the Psalms and for the settings of the Venite and Canticles (including the Quicunque Vult and Pascha Nostrum), I use Saint Dunstan’s Plainsong Psalter.
- On days when I officiate Morning and Evening Prayer in my Parish, the typical 1979 BCP Offices are followed.
(Total time: 60 min.)
NOON
Prologue Office of Praise, and, unless my schedule on a given day does not permit, it is followed by a Holy Office of Silence.
(Total time: 40 min.)
EVENING
Prologue Office of Praise, then a Holy Office of Silence. Thereafter is the Daily Office of Readings in the same way as the morning, using the evening portion of Psalms, Lessons, Canticles and Collects. The previous note about Lessons applies here as well.
(Total time: 60 min.)
WAKING AND GOING TO BED
1. Upon waking in bed I say a brief and silent devotion in which I ask God for His presence. This lasts a minute or two. Oftentimes it is Julian of Norwich’s prayer:
God, of Thy Goodness, give me Thyself:
for Thou art enough to me,
and I may nothing ask that is less
that may be full worship to Thee;
and if I ask anything that is less,
ever me be in want,—
but only in Thee I have all. Amen.
2. Right before bed, under the covers, I silently recite a Short Office of the Apostles’ Creed, Our Father, Hail Mary, and Benediction, all memorized.