The Office? No, not the excellent British comedy series which was hard to watch on account of its cringe making realism but rather the daily duty of prayer. St. Benedict of Nursia broke this up into eight periods: Matins or Vigils, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline, thus sanctifying the day on into the night.
In the Anglican world, the wicked if skillful liturgist Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, conflated these into the twofold Office of Morning and Evening Prayer. It's solid stuff, especially in the language of the old prayer book (1928) as opposed to the horrific, banal, unsayable modern language variants cooked up by expert liturgists in the 1970s and beyond.
That said, consider the benefit of a set order of prayer, canticles, and readings from the psalms and the Old and New Testaments; every day, morning and evening. Not only does this free the person at prayer from having to cook it all up themselves, which tends to mean they don't, but also unites them to the common, daily, prayer of the Church.
Back to Cranmer, who was burned at the stake in Oxford for being a wicked heretic. Perhaps he was, but I'd argue he did a masterful work of making Benedict's Monastic Office accessible to the laity. Bold call: Look here, laic, you too can sanctify the day as well as priests and religious, provided of course that you can read.
And that's just it, provided you can read. This, punters, is at something of a premium right about now and forces the question: As we sink into barbarism, and we are, will the Church keep the light of civilization burning in the encroaching darkness? She's done so before and I'll wager she'll do so again.
We had five souls at Evening Prayer today in this small garrison style Mission we call the Compound, and there we were, praying with the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, Mystici Corporis Christi, and you know what? The gates of hell shall not prevail.
God bless you all,
LSP
