DAILY PRAYER
A Simple Plan for Learning to Say
the Daily Prayer of the Church
This is an excerpt from the prayerbook — actually it is the letter that opens the book.
HOWEVER IT HAS HAPPENED, you have joined the crowd of folks who is being drawn by and drawn to the prayer of the Daily Office.
It may have been a part of the tradition in which you grew up or it may well have been something you only came to hear about much later. If you were like me, it happened when you least expected it and, to be honest, were finally ready for it.
It may well be that that you have tried to make this practice a part of your life of devotion before and were unable to somehow. It may be so new to you that your head and heart and spirit are still buzzing from the excitement of having found it or having been found by it.
You may be part of a group in your church or parish. You may be part of a group friends trying to find your way together. You may be among the crowd, myself included, who has spent countless hours trying to find our way through prayer books of one sort or another, prayer books made for corporate worship, prayer books that are hard to understand and use for personal prayer, no matter how hard we try.
However it is that you got here, you are welcome. At the very least, from now on, you are no longer alone.
There is a growing crowd of us who is coming to believe that prayer in this ancient way is, at the very least, an obligation and a gift that we owe to the One Who made us. Two thousand years of Christian faith and tradition and practice tell us that.
We are also coming to believe this way of prayer holds a key to the future and the soul and the spirit of the Church — more so than programs and budgets and membership drives and marketing awareness and all the rest of the things of modern culture that the Church has adopted.
This is a little book for us beginners.
We have done our best to try and make it as simple and as uncomplicated as we can for you to participate in the prayer that makes each hour of the day and night holy, the prayer that Christ himself offers through us to the Almighty God.
This book is a beginning, not an end. It is a way of starting down this road. Other books, far better books in fact, will come your way some day and it will be time to set this one aside.
“First and foremost,” wrote Geoffrey Lee, “the Church worships the living God.” That is what these pages are for: to learn to worship the living God each day as did those who went before us.
VENITE ADOREMUS — Come let us adore Him.
This multi-media kit includes:
- a DVD with a complete explanation of The Daily Office including the history, elements of each office, instructions for how to get started and a demonstration of Night Prayer,
- Daily Prayer: A Little Book for Saying the Daily Office that contains all the prayers of The Daily Office, simple instructions, a Psalter and all you need to begin.
- A bookmark that contains the Call to Prayer and special prayers.
- A CD with Robert Benson reading each Daily Office.
The above letter was excerpted from Daily Prayer: A Little Book for Saying the Daily Office
copyright 2006 Robert Benson,
published by Carolina Broadcasting & Publishing, Inc.
851 Washington Street, Raleigh, North Carolina 27605
www.dailyprayerlife.com
|
