How to Pray the Daily Office

The Daily Office is the Church's fixed-hour prayer: appointed psalms, appointed Scripture, and set prayers, said at set times, whether or not you feel like it.

That last clause is the whole point, and it is what distinguishes the office from a quiet time. A quiet time is yours — you choose the passage and pray what is on your mind. The office is not yours. The psalms are appointed, the readings are appointed, the prayers are ancient and fixed, and you say them because it is Tuesday morning.

For people whose devotional life rises and falls with how they feel, this is a considerable relief.

What it consists of

The forms differ by tradition, but the ingredients are remarkably stable.

• An opening versicle — a short call and response. O Lord, open thou our lips.
• Psalms appointed for the day, usually two or three, worked through on a fixed cycle.
• Scripture readings — commonly one from each Testament.
• A canticle — a song from Scripture. The Magnificat at evening, the Benedictus in the morning.
• The Apostles' Creed.
• The Lord's Prayer.
• Collects — short set prayers, one appointed for the week, one for the time of day.

Fifteen to twenty minutes for Morning Prayer. Less for a shorter office.

The traditions

Anglican. Cranmer collapsed the medieval seven-fold office into two — Morning and Evening Prayer — precisely so that ordinary working people could keep it. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer is the classic form, and the whole psalter is covered every thirty days. It is the most accessible starting point for most English speakers, and Devout's Daily Office keeps this form, free and without an account.

Roman Catholic. The Liturgy of the Hours, in its post-1970 form: an Office of Readings, Morning Prayer (Lauds), Daytime Prayer, Evening Prayer (Vespers) and Night Prayer (Compline). A four-week psalter cycle. Fuller and more demanding; most lay people who keep it pray Lauds and Vespers.

Orthodox. A cycle of Vespers, Compline, Midnight Office, Matins and the Hours, interwoven with the daily lectionary and the commemorations of the saints. Rarely kept in full outside a monastery.

Lutheran and Reformed. Both retain daily prayer offices — Matins and Vespers in the Lutheran books, and a strong tradition of household prayer in the Reformed churches.

You do not have to choose the office of your own tradition to begin, though there are good reasons to end up there.

How to begin

Start with one office, not four. Morning Prayer, or Compline. People who begin by attempting the full Liturgy of the Hours in week one are reliably not praying it in week four.

Compline is the easiest door. Night Prayer is short — ten minutes — barely changes from night to night, and is prayed at an hour that is usually free. Many people who now keep a full office started here.

Say it aloud. The office is liturgy. It is written for the voice, and said silently it goes flat and fast.

Expect it to feel strange for a fortnight. You are reading words someone else wrote, in an order you did not choose, about things you may not currently feel. The strangeness is the practice doing its work: it is teaching you to pray beyond your own mood and preoccupations.

Do not add to it. The temptation, when the office feels thin, is to append your own prayers until it becomes a quiet time with a liturgical preamble. Keep them separate. The office's value is precisely that it is not about you.

Why bother

Three things it offers that private prayer struggles to.

It does not depend on you. On the mornings when you have nothing, the office has something. The psalms are already chosen and the words are already written. You show up and say them.

It prays the whole psalter, not your favourites. Left to ourselves we return to the same dozen psalms. A cycle hands you Psalm 88 on a good day and Psalm 150 on a bad one, and the friction is formative.

It is corporate even when said alone. The office is being said, at that hour, by a large number of people across the world. Saying Morning Prayer alone in a kitchen is joining something already in progress rather than starting something.

Common questions

What is the Daily Office?

The Church's fixed-hour prayer: set psalms, Scripture readings and prayers said at appointed times each day. It is also called the Divine Office, the Liturgy of the Hours, or simply Morning and Evening Prayer. The content is appointed rather than chosen, which is the feature that distinguishes it from private devotion.

How long does Morning Prayer take?

Fifteen to twenty minutes said aloud at an unhurried pace. Compline, the night office, takes about ten and is the shortest and most stable of the hours, which is why it is usually the easiest place to start.

Do I need a breviary or prayer book to pray the office?

No. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer is out of copyright and freely available, and Devout's Daily Office assembles Morning and Evening Prayer with today's appointed psalms and collect already in place, free and without an account. A physical breviary is a pleasure rather than a requirement, and working out which ribbon goes where has stopped more beginners than the praying itself.

Can lay people pray the Daily Office?

Yes, and that was the explicit intention behind the Anglican form — Cranmer reduced the medieval seven hours to two so that people with jobs could keep them. Catholic lay people are likewise encouraged to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, most commonly Morning and Evening Prayer. The office has never been the clergy's private property.

What if I miss an office?

Say the next one. There is no making up: the office is tied to the hour, and yesterday's Evening Prayer belonged to yesterday. This is one of the practice's quiet advantages — there is no backlog to accumulate and no streak to break, so a missed day costs nothing but that day.