Places for Prayers in the Morning

 Prayers for the Morning

“But as for me, O LORD, I cry to you for help;

In the morning, my prayer comes before you.”—Psalm 88:14.

Many people practice a spiritual discipline, beginning and sometimes ending the day by reading and meditating on Holy Scripture. Many denominations follow a daily lectionary of Scripture readings. Over a set period, the reader studies significant parts of the whole Bible.

In the Episcopal tradition, the Book of Common Prayer outlines a two-year cycle of daily lessons, comprising Psalms, the Hebrew Scriptures, a New Testament letter, and one of the Gospels, to be read each morning and evening. By the end of each seven-week period, the reader has read the entire Book of Psalms. After the two-year cycle, the reader has been exposed to the entire New Testament twice and to pertinent portions of the Hebrew Scriptures once. 

We can also incorporate Scripture readings into a structured morning and evening prayer service, whether read alone or with others. These Daily Offices provide a contemplative framework for regular use and a pattern for regular Bible reading. In addition, some people use a daily meditation book with Scripture readings; others use publications such as The Upper Room (Methodist), Forward Day By Day (Episcopal), and Catholic resources like The Catholic Moment, The Word Among Us, and Being Catholic. Some of these meditations are available online for reading or listening. 

The Daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer are also available online. One of the most popular office sites is The Mission of St. Clare, www.missionstclare.com. I use the Daily Office at https://dailyoffice.wordpress.com/ for its additional artwork. 

I am part of a group continuing Community of Hope training in pastoral care, and we read daily meditations from Joan Chittister’s book on The Rule of Benedict. I had forgotten how much of a treasure it is to read for myself and then hear what others have said. I learn so much more from others. God speaks much more clearly in community.

Morning Prayer is offered Monday through Friday in this beautiful chapel at Saint Mark’s. Noonday prayers are posted on Saint Mark’s Facebook Page (Love St. Mark’s, https://www.facebook.com/stmarkslr) Monday through Friday.

I hope to hear from many others about their use of daily meditations and their approaches to structuring daily Scripture readings.

Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Thank you for supporting our camp and conference center, Camp Mitchell, on top of Petit Jean Mountain, by purchasing this book from the daily series of writings for the liturgical year, A Daily Spiritual Rx for Ordinary Time: Readings from Pentecost to Advent. All proceeds from book sales will benefit Camp Mitchell. If you enjoy this book, please take a moment to write a brief recommendation on its Amazon page at https://smile.amazon.com/Daily-Spiritual-Ordinary-Time-Pentecost/dp/B08JLTZYGH/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=joanna+seibert+books&qid=1621104335&sr=8-1

 More thank-you’s than we can say!!!

Joanna.  joannaseibert.com

Daily Ways To Pray

Tickle: Daily Prayer Practices

Canticle: A Song of Pilgrimage 

“Before I ventured forth,
even while I was very young,*
I sought wisdom openly in my prayer.
In the forecourts of the temple I asked for her,*
and I will seek her to the end.
From first blossom to early fruit,*
she has been the delight of my heart.
My foot has kept firmly to the true path,*
diligently from my youth have I pursued her.
I inclined my ear a little and received her;*
I found for myself much wisdom and became adept in her.
To the one who gives me wisdom will I give glory,*
for I have resolved to live according to her way.
From the beginning I gained courage from her,*
therefore I will not be forsaken.
In my inmost being I have been stirred to seek her,*
therefore have I gained a good possession.
As my reward the Almighty has given me the gift of language,*
and with it will I offer praise to God.”—Ecclesiasticus 51:13-16, 20b-22.

This “Song of Pilgrimage from Ecclesiasticus” is one of the Canticles offered for Morning and Evening Prayer in Enriching Our Worship 1, one of the early alternative Canticles for the Book of Common Prayer.

Christians inherited a pattern of daily prayer from the Jews, who set aside specific times for worship three times a day. More diligent Christians later took to heart Psalm 119:164, “Seven times a day do I praise you.”

By the Middle Ages, monks had developed a tradition of seven daily prayer times: Matins before dawn and Lauds at daybreak, which were combined into one service. Then, at sunrise, midmorning, noon, and midafternoon came Prime, Terce, Sext, and None; Vespers was observed at sundown and Compline at bedtime. Monks and nuns in monasteries faithfully kept this schedule over the centuries. Laypeople could come when possible.

In 1549, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, in the first English Book of Common Prayer, established a structure that enabled ordinary people to follow a prayer schedule and praise God at the beginning and end of each day through two services: Morning and Evening Prayer. The 1979 BCP, as it stands today, restored Noonday Prayers and Compline. (See A User’s Guide to Morning Prayer and Baptism by Christopher Webber.) 

Phyllis Tickle, the theologian, writer, and founding Religion Editor of Publishers Weekly, reintroduced a shorter version of the daily observation of the Divine Hours in a series of books that many now follow. A pocket edition is available for easy carrying. Her shorter versions of the morning, noon, evening (Vespers), and bedtime (Compline) prayers, readings, and Scripture offer a way to pause our work and reconnect with God frequently throughout the day and evening. 

The readings are also available online at http://www.explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/hours.php and http://annarborvineyard.org/tdh/tdh.cfm.

Consider observing at least one of the daily offices. Noonday prayers are offered on St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Little Rock’s Facebook page. Morning Prayer is offered on weekdays in the chapel.

Compline is observed online at Mission of St. Clare on Facebook and on Barbara Cawthorne Crafton’s Facebook Page.

Joanna. https://www.joannaseibert.com/

kairos Time, Where We Glimpse a Deep Place Where Time is Timeless

Kairos Time, Where We Glimpse a Deep Place Where Time is Timeless

“Music helps us ‘keep time’ in the sense of keeping us in touch with time, not just time as an ever-flowing stream that bears all of us away at last, but time also as a stream that every once in a while slows down and becomes transparent enough for us to see down to the streambed, the way, at a wedding, say, or when watching the sunrise, past, present, and future are so caught up in a single moment that we catch a glimpse of the mystery that, at its deepest place, time is timeless.”—Frederic Buechner in Beyond Words.

Buechner writes that artists who paint work with space, while time is the medium for musicians, as the changing sound of one note follows another at different intervals. I hear each bird singing outside my window with a distinct rhythm. Even the silent wind makes a variable sound as it moves through nearby trees. 

The rain also sounds on our bedroom roof in regular and irregular beats, often like an alarm clock in the early morning. Our grandchildren once loved to lie in our bed and listen to the sound of rain beating on our roof while we watched movies together.

Each day, we awaken to a new gift of time. Buechner goes further, saying that the movements of a symphony teach us about the movements of our daily lives, streaming from one sound, one instrument, to another, often in repetition. Our favorite musicians and nature’s constant sounds help us keep time so these movements can flow through our lives. 

Sometimes, this stream of music in our lives slows just enough for us to see clearly the bottom of the stream and to live in the present moment at sunsets, graduations, the births of our children, weddings, funerals, and sacred liturgies. We realize the mystery of how time is timeless. This is living in Kairos time, God’s time, eternity.

I had a similar experience while writing my last book, Letters from My Grandfather, as I responded to letters my grandfather had written fifty and sixty years earlier. I experienced an absence of linear time and sensed a timelessness between us. Here, it was not music but writing that made time timeless.  

Joanna joannaseibert.com https://www.joannaseibert.com/