By Derek Olsen

The Daily Office, the Liturgy of the Hours, Morning and Evening Prayer—call them what you may, but these liturgies to me are at the heart of the Anglican way. I’ve watched commentators wrangle for months and years now on what a real Anglican is. I’ve seen arguments based on doctrine, arguments based on polity, arguments based on breadth. I have no idea who has the right of it—but I do know that I don’t trust any definition that does not make its way through these liturgies, the liturgies that have been the daily bread of Anglicans since Thomas Cranmer’s first Book of Common Prayer in 1549.

In a pattern both catholic and evangelical, the reforming archbishop produced two services of liturgical prayer that were, basically—unoriginal. And that was and is their genius. Cranmer’s work is not his own intellectual labor but, rather, the product of centuries of Christian prayer and reflection, formulated by a sixth century Italian monastic here, explicated by an eight-century English deacon there, simplified by a fifteenth century Spanish cardinal, and—finally—translated by a sixteenth century archbishop. But the story doesn’t consist only of these, of course. For through all of these moments sound the countless tongues of countless saints who have murmured, sung, and wept these words. No, the story of these liturgies encompasses all of us who have prayed, who have felt, who have been shaped by their words, their concepts, their cadences.

The soul of the Daily Office is repetition, of living a pattern. It’s a pattern written upon a year, Christ’s year, that draws us into his journey from cradle to crowds to cross that leads us beyond a span of years in Galilee to encompass the all, from creation to new creation. In this repetition and rhythm, two elements circumscribe the center: the songs of Scripture—the psalms and canticles. The psalms wheel around us in cycles of months—following Cranmer’s 30 day calendar still found in our Psalter today—or in the seven or so weeks of our current daily lectionary. But what mark our days, what come without fail as the sun meets each horizon are the canticles. These are the words that shape us; these are the words that form us into their ways. These are the words without which, cries of “true Anglican” ring hollow—to my ears, at least.

The canticles that cleave close to the heart of the Hours are four: the Benedictus, the Magnificat, the Nunc Dimittis, and the Te Deum. The first three are directly from the words of Scripture, from the opening pages of Luke’s gospel; the fourth, a creedal hymn of the early church. The first three function like overtures to Luke’s gospel—they introduce the themes that will be spun out in the two-volume story of Jesus and the spread of faith in his name across the known world. In common they recall the past history of saving deeds that God performed for the Children of Israel. They focus on the promise of redemption that God has reiterated time and again through the covenants and prophets. And, ultimately, they point to the fulfillment of these saving acts, of the promised redemption, in the person of Jesus—the babe of the manger, Mary’s boy, the true God in our own flesh. As we read and sing these canticles they draw us into their act of praise: we recall the doings of God that are wondrous in our sight, we experience the pregnant pause as we await the final fulfillment of God’s promises while we yet rejoice in the power of the Spirit.

While the songs from Luke hold these themes in common, each one speaks a powerful word of challenge, reflecting variously on the manifold meanings of what God in Christ is doing for us—and to us. The Benedictus, the Song of Zechariah, sung by the rejoicing hierarch of Israel underscores the priestly role of all of God’s people. The aim of God’s promise here is safety that the people may—with heart, mind, soul, and strength—worship God in holiness and righteousness. In the words sung to his new-born son we overhear the call to proclaim the redemptive message of Christ to all who sit in darkness, to all who inhabit the shadow of death. In the Magnificat or Song of Mary, the expectant mother consciously recalls the Old Testament Song of Hannah—the words of an earlier mother whose son would hear and obey the words of God, a promise of the Child who was to come. The expectant Mary exults in the radical reversals of God and the words of her song foreshadow and frame the opening words of Christ’s own great sermon in Luke, the Sermon on the Plain. With the Blessed Virgin we contemplate the chaos of God’s expectant order, paradoxes achieved preeminently by He who conquers glorious in a shameful death upon a cross. The Nunc Dimittis, the Song of Simeon, finds the aged friend of God holding in his hands the Light of the Ages, embracing his mortal end confident that he goes not into darkness and shade—for he has beheld the new dawn within the child in his arms. With him we consider our own mortality and the mystery of life in Christ, the promised rest for a pilgrim people.

Truly, if these don’t challenge you, if these don’t push you—you just ain’t paying attention…

Alongside these, the Te Deum renders the creeds in song, calling us to join with the whole host of heaven, the whole company of faithful people, the whole created order in a life ringing—and ringed—with praise. The ancient mysteries of faith: Christ incarnate; Christ crucified; Christ risen and ascended; He before whom all the trees of the wood will clap their hands, all the rivers roar, when he comes again to judge with truth and equity; these are recounted and hymned, both proclaimed for our edification and praised for the glory of God. The canticle dances with Scripture, now lighting on Isaiah, now touching on Paul, the Psalter sounding in our ears all the while, until—at the last—it culminates in a plea. We know the promises. We have sung the promises. Now—by the mercy of Christ—may we claim the promises and share in a life hid in God.

These are the words that circumscribe the Anglican heart. These are the promises that bound and ground our hope and faith. Words of Scripture, words of song, these are the words that lead us into the mind of Christ.

Derek Olsen is a database programmer and adjunct professor at Emory University's Candler School of Theology. He keeps the blog Haligweorc.

For audio visual meditations on the Magnificat and Nunc Dimitis, visit the meditations page and click on Canticle 15: The Song of Mary and Candlemas, respectively.

St. Macarius [one of the desert hermits] was asked to explain a phrase of a Psalm: “The meditation of my heart is in your sight.” He proceeded to give one of the earliest descriptions of the “prayer of the heart” which consisted in invoking the name of Christ, with profound attention, in the very ground of one’s being, that is to say “in the heart” considered as the root and source of all one’s own inner truth. To invoke the name of Christ “in one’s heart” was equivalent to calling upon him with the deepest and most earnest intensity of faith, manifested by the concentration of one’s entire being upon a prayer stripped of all non-essentials and reduced to nothing but the invocation of his name with the simple petition for help. Macarius said: “There is no other perfect meditation than the saving and blessed Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ dwelling without interruption in you, as it is written ‘I will cry out like the swallow and I will meditate like the turtledove!’ This is what is done by the devout [person] who perseveres in invoking the saving Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” --Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer (New York: Image Books, 1996), p. 22.

Merton goes on to describe the development of this form of prayer into a rich tradition in Eastern monasticism, but here he is interested in the “heart” of the matter, the invocation of the Name of Jesus with loving attention. To do this involves a turning of the whole person toward the divine mercy, summed up and expressed in the person of Jesus, who is present in the Holy Name, which as Scripture reminds us is closely tied to his role as Savior. To dwell on his Name is to invite his presence and that of the Spirit of love. Other forms of prayer may be desirable to cultivate, but true prayer is not so much a technique as a gift. In the utterly simple prayer of the heart, we turn to God empty handed and cry out for the Gift in whom all other gifts are given.

The prayer of the heart is closely related to what monastic tradition calls being “recollected.” This notion is itself analogous to what Twelve Step recovery names “serenity,” or what is meant by “centering prayer.” It would be an error to think of this as a withdrawal from the world. Serenity is not removal from the storm but peace within the storm. Centering prayer must never become “self-centering prayer.” Rather it is an attempt to pay attention to the inescapable presence of God, which grounds our very existence. The mercy of God comes as an unbidden gift, not because God ever leaves us, but because we choose to turn away. As Augustine once summed up the matter “You were with me; I was not with you.”

In dwelling on the Name of Jesus with loving attention, we remember who we are and whose we are, and we are plunged into the never failing river of grace that makes glad the City of God. To the extent that we are open to this grace, we will die to every lying way, to every overreach of ego, to all self-hatred and malice toward our neighbor. We will also find ourselves, as we are taken lifted up by the hand and given new life in the Kingdom.

Never underestimate the power of the Name, or the simplicity of true prayer. In the end, it is always the cry of a dearly beloved but frail and poor creature for help. And it is always answered before it so much as finds its voice. For the desire to pray is itself a grace, the beginning of an answer. And the act of prayer is at once our very own action, and the work of the living God.

Bill Carroll

"The brethren also asked [Abba Agathon], 'Amongst all good works, which is the virtue that requires the greatest effort?' He answered, 'Forgive me, but I think there is no labour greater than that of prayer to God. For every time a [person] wants to pray, his enemies, the demons, want to prevent him, for they know that it is only by turning him from prayer that they can hinder his journey. Whatever good work a [person] undertakes, if [she] perseveres in it, [she] will attain rest. But prayer is warfare to the last breath.'" The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection (Cistercian Publications, 1975), pp. 21-22.

I'm not sure that prayer is always so intense, but it can be and there is a great deal to learn from what Abba Agathon says in this story. Too often, we underestimate the difficulty of prayer, and we find ourselves discouraged by the many distractions and temptations that in fact beset us, when we try to give more of our attention to God. Metaphors of vigilance and warfare are found in the Bible. "Could you not keep watch one hour?" Jesus asks his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane. "You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood," says the author of Hebrews.

And yet, this vigilance, this "warfare to the last breath" is only part of the story. Our fundamental choice, empowered by the ever present Holy Spirit, is whether or not to turn our faces toward the Author of Life. Letting go is among the easiest and the hardest things we ever do. The demons Abba Agathon is talking about are far more powerful than we. I'm not one for complete reductionism here, but often language about the demonic points to self-destructive parts of ourselves. (It can also signify overwhelming social forces.) God may require our cooperation to win the battle, but the battle does belong to the Lord. Agathon is filled with insight when he notes that the demons would like nothing more than to keep us from prayer. For ultimately, only the living God--only the strange, weak power of Christ Crucified--can disarm these powers and bring us out of the house of bondage and into the promised land.

And so, we keep our eyes turned to the Divine Mercy as we persevere in prayer. May we do so to our last breath.

Bill Carroll

"Although the baptismal Christ and indwelling Paraclete never cease for one moment to work within us, most of us--save on rare occasions--remain virtually unaware of this inner presence and activity. True prayer, then, signifies the rediscovery and 'manifestation' of baptismal grace. To pray is to pass from the state where grace is present in our hearts secretly and unconsciously, to the point of full inner perception and conscious awareness when we experience and feel the power of the Spirit directly and immediately."
Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia, The Power of the Name: The Jesus Prayer in Orthodox Spirituality (Oxford: Fairacres/SLG Press, 1974), p. 3.

Archbishop Kallistos is aware that grace is also at work in those who have not been baptized, but there is something very powerful about this image of true prayer as the "rediscovery and manifestation of baptismal grace." Surely, there are forms of apophatic discourse that would render this emphasis on experiencing and feeling the power of the Spirit suspect. And yet, true prayer is often exactly that, the rendering conscious of that which is happening within our hearts through the Trinitarian missions of Son and Spirit. If we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ's own, then grace is always, already at work within us conforming us, each in our own unique way, to the image of Christ. Prayer is the work of the Holy Spirit within us, wherein we share in the Sonship of Jesus Christ. It means being caught up in a web of loving relationships, flooded with the Gift of God's own living charity, namely the Holy Spirit. And who would doubt that our spirit, when made alive to the presence of God's Spirit, might be conscious of the same, as we become one Spirit with the Lord, just as Christ became one flesh with us, distinct yet inseparable in a union more intimate than any marriage.

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, Ohio. His parish blog is at here.

"God is replenishingly everywhere; but most contractedly and workingly in the temple. Since then every rectified man is the temple of the Holy Ghost, when he prays; it is the Holy Ghost itself that prays; and what can be denied where the asker gives? He plays with us, as children, shows us pleasing things, that we may cry for them and have them. 'Before we call, he answers and when we speak he hears:' So Isaiah 65:24.

John Donne, Sermon on Luke 23:34 in Selections from Divine Poems, Sermons, and Prayers (New York and Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1990), p. 189.

It is a common paradox in Christian theology. God is everywhere, and yet God's presence can be localized and come into focus in any one of a number of places: the Temple, the neighbor, the poor, the gathered People, and--above all--the Christ, who is in all of these other places and persons.

Donne focuses on the notion that the "rectified man" (we would say "person") is the temple of the Holy Ghost. Even though a more accurate exegesis of the Pauline notion might point out that it is the People as such who are the Temple of the Spirit, each one of us is indwelt by this Spirit as interdependent members of the Body, an organic reality whose tendrils may well extend beyond the confines of the visible Church, since the Spirit of the Lord has been poured out on all flesh.

Donne goes on to consider the implications of the Spirit's presence within us for petitionary prayer. No passage in the Gospel presents more enormous pastoral and spiritual difficulties than those in which our Lord implies that God will always answer prayer. For Donne, true prayer is always answered because the Asker and the Giver are one and the same. In other words, God always answers prayer, because true prayer is the work of the Holy Spirit within us, having become our very own prayer, uttered in our own true voice.

Now the cry of our heart may first arise in a variety of askings, some of which may even contradict each other. But if we persist in prayer, and are bold enough to cry out in rage and lamentation if need be, we discover the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit, whose Temple we are. And we are plunged into the abundance of a God who knows us and loves us, and find acceptance and blessing and courage to labor on.

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, Ohio. His parish blog is at here.

Approached in a prayerful manner, the Bible is found to be always contemporary--not just writings composed in the distant past but a message addressed directly to me here and now. "He who is humble in his thoughts and engaged in spiritual work," says St. Mark the Monk, "when he reads the Holy Scriptures will apply everything to himself and not to someone else." As a book uniquely inspired by God and addressed to each of the faithful personally, the Bible possesses sacramental power, transmitting grace to the reader, bringing him to a point of meeting and decisive encounter. Critical scholarship is by no means excluded, but the true meaning of the Bible will only be apparent to those who study it with their spiritual intellect as well as their reasoning brain. ~Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, Revised edition (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladamir's Seminary Press, 2001), p. 111.

According to the Catechism, we call the Holy Scriptures the "Word of God," because God inspired their human authors and because God still speaks to us through the Bible. Both halves of this statement are important. The first, because it acknowledges the full humanity of the authors of the text and thereby authorizes our full engagement with relevant critical scholarship. Nevertheless, it is the second part that captures my attention. The Scriptures, it suggests, can anticipate the situation of any possible reader and convey God's sovereign living Word of Truth. Truly they are the place of a sacramental, objective encounter with the living God for all who would engage with them. They are a means of grace and "addressed to each of the faithful personally," and indeed to the whole world.

We need critical scholarship and traditional practices of wrestling with Scripture, both to get ourselves out of the way of God's Word and because teachers mishandle the Word to support their personal agenda or buy into oppressive ideologies present in the text. We need a reverence for the Word, because God still speaks to us through the Bible, strong to judge, heal, and save.

Because they are a means of encounter with the living God, prayer provides a necessary key to opening the Scriptures. So too does participating in the sacraments and in the common life of the Church.

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, Ohio. His parish blog is at here

The regular awareness of God's presence, God as one who may constantly be spoken to without anxiety or specialized and intense preparation, is an awareness of being in heaven (being where God is). Thus the prayer, 'Thy kingdom come,' is a petition for this sense of the presence of the kingdom of heaven to become habitual so that God's name may be fitly glorified: 'hallowed be thy name' immediately requires the prayer for the coming of the kingdom...It is worth noting that Teresa identifies the kingdom with a state in which we rejoice in the activity of a shared praise and a universal holiness...the stability of our prayer owes much to the sense of its being common prayer.

Rowan Williams, Teresa of Avila (London and New York: Continuum, 1991), p. 92, discussing Teresa's treatment of the Lord's Prayer in The Way of Perfection.

Williams’ short book on Teresa of Avila is a masterful introduction to some challenging material. One of the things I appreciate about this paragraph concerning Teresa’s exposition of the Our Father is the sense of the directness and simplicity of Christian prayer, as well as its deeply communal character. Even our most intimate personal devotions—to say nothing of the liturgical offices or the Holy Eucharist—are never offered alone but instead form part of the “activity of shared praise,” or “common prayer.” They are the graced actions of an ecclesial person, who lives and dies in relationship with divine and human others. The Kingdom of God, which for Teresa seems to be fairly close to what most of us would mean by the communion of the saints, is an inherently social reality.

And God can be approached directly and immediately as “Our Father” (there are other names), the gracious source and origin of all reality, without any need for specialized, esoteric techniques. For the Christian, mystical union is the free gift of the presence of God. And the way in is simple faith in Jesus, in the company of our brothers and sisters in every time and place.

As we journey together through the wilderness, in the shadow of the cross, may we be mindful of this simple gift.

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, Ohio. His parish blog is at here

Almighty God, to whom we must account for all our powers and privileges: Guide the people of the United States in the election of officials and representatives; that, by faithful administration and wise laws, the rights of all may be protected and our nation be enabled to fulfill your purposes; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

~Book of Common Prayer p. 822

AM Psalm 148, 149, 150;
PM Psalm 114, 115
Isa. 43:14-44:5
Heb. 6:17-7:10
John 4:27-42

In our Gospel reading today, we find Jesus speaking to a woman--and a Samaritan one at that. We also discover it's the Samaritan woman's testimony that leads more Samaritans to follow Jesus. Why? Because she actually met him. Meeting Jesus changed her opinion of what was probably kicked around at the Samaritan dinner table as "those Jews." I suspect the Samaritan woman couldn't talk about "those Jews" anymore, and from what she was telling her friends, it was another story entirely.
Isn't it something how actually meeting one of "them" changes the character of "them?"

With that in mind, I created a video for our diocese that puts faces and places to what are too often just words on our diocesan prayer list in the Diocese of Missouri. We have a partnership with the Diocese of Lui, South Sudan. Many of you know that there is a great deal of tension between ECUSA and the Episcopal Church of Sudan. Yet, for roughly a decade, our diocese has had a working partnership with Lui along with our partners in Blackmore Vale, U.K., and Lund, Sweden. There's something wonderfully mysterious about what changes when people meet each other because of a shared Anglican heritage, a shared baptism, and a shared prayer life. I can't even begin to know what will ever ultimately come of our relationship in light of the tension between the two churches, but I know I am grateful to share my prayer life with these folks and to have met them on my recent mission trip.

That said, I invite you to pray with all of us in Missouri, Blackmore Vale, Lund, and Lui through this video.

Praying for Lui from Episcopal Diocese of Missouri on Vimeo.

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid. Dr. Evans recently returned from a mission trip from the Diocese of Missouri to the Episcopal Diocese of Lui, South Sudan. http://luinetwork.diocesemo.org