Fourth Saturday in Easter

Lectionary texts for today:

1 John 4:7-21

Lectionary texts for Sunday:

Acts 8:26-40

Psalm 22:25-31 (UMH 752)

1 John 4;7-21

John 15:1-8

As I keyed in The Daily Office yesterday, I kept noting things I needed to comment on. Not being as good a typist as I once was, I found that just keying in the text took all the time I wanted to spend yesterday. So instead of the usual Saturday Bible Study, I'm going to comment on the The Daily Office for yesterday. You might want to print it off, so that you can refer to it, as you read this. I will catch up on Acts next week.

As I have noted, there are many versions of The Daily Office. I use that of the Order of St. Luke, which I find easy to use, largely because almost everything is printed in it. Many Daily Offices, like Common Prayer for Ordinary Radicals, print much less and have you going to hymnals and other resource books for various parts. Others, like the BCP are the reverse. They print so much, but not in a coherent order (except to lifelong Episcopalians). For example, instead of having a Collect for that particular day or week, you'll have five collects together, one for each day of the week, except for two randomly empty days, then a general collect for any day. Another part of the BCP will contain other collects for special days and events. John Wesley's Morning Prayer service is very brief and there is only one service. That service is for every day of the year. So here are my first two principles for our Daily Office.

1. Easy to use. Everything, except the lectionary scripture texts and the Lord's Prayer, will be printed out in full. The only other book you will need to reference is the Bible.

2. Variety. A full separate Office for each day of the Christian Year.  

3. It will be interesting reading. Nothing long. Nothing dull.

Now a few comments on the OSL service you have from yesterday's blog. Let me note first that I want not to make the OSL Office a model for this one. There will be a Call to Praise and Prayer, with the first two lines usually identical to the OSL for many days; the second two lines always different. There will always be a Psalter reading, usually printed out in Responsive Reading form.

There are three different Glorias that we will use. The Gloria Patri (UMH 71) that everybody knows, the UMH 72 Gloria (Gloria in Excelsis), which is beautiful when sung, nice enough when spoken. The third is as follows:

Glory to God, Source of all

Eternal Word and Holy Spirit

One God, Holy and Blessed Trinity

Who is now, ever was, and ever shall be for endless ages. Amen

The Creed. Notice that the OSL Office does not have a creed. We will have the creed every day. There are two creeds we will use, The Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed. Generally speaking, we will use the Apostles' Creed on normal days, the Nicene Creed on Saints Days and special commemorations. We will say the Lord's Prayer every day.

 

There will be space for other spiritual readings, as in the OSL Office. Current Daily Devotional books are appropriate here. I have also read Christian classics, a page a day, in this part of the office. I just finished Julian of Norwich's Showings. I am now reading The Rule of St. Benedict, a page a day, during this time.

There will be a Going Forth or Benediction each day. There will be several prayers, none of them very long, many of them from historic Christians, others from the Bible, and many from you and me. 

 

There will always be a place in the office for special prayers, as we are having for Drew Church now. 

This is just the Morning Prayer service. When the one year cycle is completed, we'll start to think about other services in The Daily Office.

 

Please let me know of any questions you have about The Daily Office or about our project. 

God,

We continue our prayers for Drew and for his complete recovery. We pray for your blessing as we move toward beginning The Daily Office project. Amen.

 

Faithfully,

Christian