Daily Prayer

The pandemic that is now upon us, along with its worries and various preparations, also leaves some time for reflection and taking stock. I have felt strongly called to think about my prayer life the past few days, and in particular my own practice of how to best anchor the hours and days in prayer. One such anchor is the Litany of Loreto, or Litany of Our Lady, found here in English and Latin: Litany of Loreto:

Additionally,  I have felt called again to take down from the shelf the book that served me first and for the longest extended periods over many years, namely “Daily Prayer”, the one volume distillation from the Divine Office of the Roman Rite. My copy is much worn, so much so that the lovely cross on the cover is partially worn out:

 

 

I purchased it during my first term at Oxford, many years ago now towards the beginning of Winter, the feast of St Nicholas in 1984:

It immediately became my treasured companion in prayer, day in and out. Only days after purchasing it I began my pilgrimage to various English cathedrals up and down the country, praying with it on trains, in rather chill B & Bs, sometimes sitting in one of the chairs in a great medieval cathedral. It closed many an evening with Compline after walking home from Evensong in the quiet of an early winter’s night. I remember the following Spring praying morning prayer in the churchyard of the medieval stave church in Borgund, Norway, enjoying the solitary beauty.

 

Over the years this volume stayed with me, and its worn pages and pasted inserts testify to that. Here, for example, is the prayer of Consecration to the Trinity written by Blessed Columba Marmion, the great early twentieth century Benedictine spiritual teacher. When I look at this, it reminds me of my greatest teacher of prayer, the saintly late Fr Benedict  of St Benedict’s Abbey in Atchison, Kansas, who taught me so much in those very special days spent in Kansas:

 

The poems and hymns included in this breviary, a wonderful anthology of English Anglican and Catholic verse, did so much to form me, and remain with me still.

Day to day this book has taught me so much over the decades, and formed my heart. Now I turn to this treasure again, the prayer of the Church, its fragile but well-loved pages ready to nourish, anchor me and guide me in the ways of the Spirit in these strange days. To end now with the reading from Vespers this evening, Romans 12:1-2:

My brothers, I implore you by God’s mercy to offer your very selves to him: a living sacrifice, dedicated and fit for his acceptance, the worship offered by mind and heart. Adapt yourselves no longer to the pattern of this present world, but let your minds be remade and your whole nature thus transformed. Then you will be able to discern the will of God, and to know what is good, acceptable, and perfect.