A New Devotional Website

One of the most wonderful gifts that comes to us through the ancient monastic tradition are the orders for daily prayer which have been and continue to be prayed daily in many communities.  Last summer I spent almost a week at St. Meinrad's Archabby and it was wonderful to prayer the daily office (as it is called) with the monks.  The services are: Lauds at 3:00 AM (times are approximate and vary from location to location); Morning Prayer at 6:00; Noon Prayer at 12:00 noon; Evening Prayer at 6:00 and Compline at 9:00 PM.  Now the ancient tradition also included other brief services at 9 AM and 3:00 PM.  Our hymnal - Evangelical Lutheran Worship and also the Lutheran Book of Worship before it, contained beautiful settings of the office services of Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer and Compline.  Evening Prayer and Compline are especially popular in Lutheran circles.  Episcopalians use Morning Prayer with a bit more regularity.  Every night at Lutheran Summer Music at 9 we sand Evening Prayer, and it was glorious.  My daughter came to love EP so much that she insisted we sing it in the car driving home from LSM after her 1st summer there.  At Peace we do Morning Prayer every Wednesday morning at 9:00 AM.

So, why do more folks not participate in the services of the Daily Office?  Well, our schedules are all so crazy that it is very difficult to do so.  Who wants to get up for Lauds at 3:00 AM (not me - even though I did it at St. Meinrad); and mornings are so hectic with going to work, and evening is filled with activities and then when we finally get home we are tired. 

So - here is a wonderful solution: An ELCA congregation in Hawaii has created a daily office website.  You can go there at choose which service you want to pray - click on it and it is all there.  All the texts which are appointed for the day - including the texts for feast days and commemorations (I just finished praying Morning Prayer and today is the Birth of John the Baptist and all of the appointed texts are there).  I encourage you to check this out.  It is a wonderful site and a great opportunity to lift your hearts in prayer for a short amount of time.  Here is the link:  Enjoy:


Comments

  1. LCH WebmasterJuly 19, 2011 at 1:57 PM

    Thanks for sharing your daily prayer stories and for plugging the LCH Daily Prayer website.

    ReplyDelete

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