By Kit Carlson
Sunday mornings are wonderful. The family of God gathered
around the table, sharing in Christ’s Body and Blood, becoming Christ’s Body
and Blood given for the world, then leaving for another six days out in the
world, the place where most of us have our ministries and do our work.
So is one day really enough to charge us up for six days of work
and worry?
One of the gifts lurking inside the Book of Common Prayer is the Daily Office. Like the daily office to which we must
trudge from Monday through Friday, these worship services are meant to be
regular, routine, a daily practice like toothbrushing, a daily sustenance like
eating.
Most of us don’t even know these services are in there, able
to shape an entire day from sunrise to bedtime – Morning Prayer, Noonday
Prayer, Evening Prayer and Compline. And if we have tried to pray with them at
home alone, we have found them awkward, because they rely on a call and
response style of praying. The leader says something and the others respond.
Hard to do at home by yourself.
The trick is, this is common
prayer. It is meant to be done in community, with others, saying these prayers
together, holding them in common.
At our parish in East Lansing, we are trying an experiment
this Lent. We are offering some kind of daily office service every day of the
week, and we have asked folks to pick one and commit to it. Evensong on
Mondays, Noonday prayer on Tuesdays, Holy Eucharist with healing prayers on
Wednesdays, Morning Prayer on Thursdays, Facebook Morning Prayer and an
Interfaith Noonday Prayer on Fridays, and Stations of the Cross on Saturdays. Folks are gathering to pray together,
in groups as small as three people, or as large as 40. Just to pray. Together. In common.
You don’t need a church to do this. You just need some folks. Your family.
Your roommates. A few friends.
With a Book of Common Prayer and
a small group, your prayer can become common … and routine …like brushing your
teeth, or eating.
Where two or three are gathered, Jesus said he would be in
the midst of them.
Kit Carlson is the
rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in East Lansing, Michigan.
