Each year I take a group of six students up to the Monastery of the Holy Cross in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood to spend time in fixed hour prayer, silence, retreat, and service. The monastic community at Holy Cross is always extremely gracious to us and I enjoy the opportunity to expose students to spiritual formation traditions that they probably have only read about and not experienced first hand.
Fixed hour prayer (often called The Divine Office or The Liturgy of the Hours) is one of those traditions that the monastic community does extremely well – especially this unique community at Holy Cross. Prayer begins at 4:45 AM each morning and is scattered throughout the day at various, yet strategically placed, times. When I say “prayer,” most folks might run straight to a petition-oriented format that puts us in the place of asking for health, provision, care, etc. But fixed hour prayer has a specific focus on praying the Scriptures – mainly the Psalms and the various “songs” we find in the text of the Bible. This is an incredibly formative way to pray; we take the Scriptures into us and let them both 1) speak to us and 2) provide the vocabulary, setting, and vehicle to speak back to God. It’s a different way to think about and practice prayer for those who have experienced prayer as a “let’s pray real quick” moment before sermons, communion, offering, trips, and meals. The encounter with God lies in praying the text – this kind of prayer is not a request for encounter in the thing that follows (although that is certainly an appropriate kind of prayer), but an encounter in the prayer itself. Even more, this cycle of intentional renewal is the skeleton for our day – the day is anchored on these regular encounters with God.
This summer, I’ll be spending three weeks in seminar research at Calvin College looking at the development of fixed hour prayer in the early celtic church at Bangor (northern Ireland). I’m pretty excited to see how these folks ordered their day and their spiritual formation around this kind of activity.
Most people who share my background have a hard time finding resources to help them explore fixed hour prayer. I’m listing two below:
The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle at explorefaith.org
This is a great resource for those initially exploring fixed hour prayer from a protestant perspective. Phyllis Tickle does a great job of organizing prayer into four sections of the day (morning, midday, evening, and night). The website takes you directly to the prayers for the current part of the day – no searching required. There’s also an iPhone app and print editions that do the same thing. Tickle also provides a great introduction to the concept and practice of fixed hour prayer throughout Scripture and the life of the church. It’s all free (except for the print editions) and it’s a great way to jump into fixed hour prayer and not get lost in all the complexity of it.
Universalis.com
Universalis is the O.E.D. (the big daddy) of fixed hour prayer. It’s based on the catholic tradition from the west, but don’t let that scare you. It gives you the full-meal-deal for all seven times of prayer throughout the day (based on Psalm 119:164 – “seven times a day I praise you…”). Like explorefaith.org, it automatically takes you to the right place for the day. They have a great iPhone app plus Mac and Windows apps. It’s a little overwhelming for a first-timer, but it’s a great place to grow into.