Prayer, again.

 

So how do we pray?  How do we pray the hours?  How can we be sure to “pray without ceasing”?  I think that’s what In Constant Prayer is all about, in the end.  Praying the hours is just a method to fulfill the directive from Scripture.

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. ~~ 1 Thess. 5:16-18

This ancient practice is a series of mini worship services, a time to commune with our God, our Savior and our King.

So how do we do this:

1. Pick a time (or times)!

2. Pick a place.  Picking a place, having a routine (such as lighting a candle) signifies the time as special, set apart.

3. Find a friend. Find someone who will pray the hours with you, even when you are apart.

4. Show up.  You can’t do it, if you don’t do it. ;)

 

This practice has prepared prayers; you can get prayer books, a manual of sorts.  I grew up in a religious community where prayers were not read.  Read prayers were not sincere.  But after reading this book, I’ve gotten to thinking.  What makes a read prayer any less worshipful or any less useful than a song that we sing and read the words of on the power point!  There really is no difference.

“The office is just a collection of words.  But words are powerful things.  Who knows what a single one of them might do to us over time?

In the beginning was the Word – and here is everything else now, including me and you and all that there is, seen and unseen, all of it alive  with the life of that single word.  From which ahs flowed grace upon grace.

Words are powerful things.

The daily office offers me rich, powerful, profound words that can change me and shape me.  Words that have been given as a gift through the ages to me and to you.  Words that can grow in me and give voice to the groaning of my heart when I cannot.  Words that can teach me to be attentive to and to perceive the meaning of the work of God.  Words that will lead me into a deeper and deeper communion with God.

But not if I do not say them.”  ~~page 138

So, I am continuing to research and some of the sites I am looking at are listed below.  I am eager to modify them to suite my life and family.  It will be small scale, but it will be something.

http://www.commonprayer.org/offices/hour_n.cfm

http://www.commonprayer.org/offices/even.cfm

http://www.commonprayer.org/offices/morn.cfm

http://www.cptryon.org/prayer/day/index.html

 

Still diggin',