AS CHILDREN, MANY OF US learned to pray by memorizing prayers. We said “grace” before meals and bedtime prayers with their inevitable lists of thank you, God blesses and forgives me. Furthermore, churchgoers eventually memorized the Lord’s Prayer, the Gloria Patri, some hymns and probably a creed to two without even trying. These prayers and confessions formed and shaped us. Generally the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Episcopal and Lutheran churches count themselves as “liturgical churches.” But no church is without a liturgy. Every community of faith has their won particular pattern and format for prayers, responsive readings, music, offerings, sermons, and so forth. (Even spontaneity tends to fit into a particular slot within the pattern). This pattern is the way they do church.
Liturgy invites us into Scripture, prayers and words of the church in a pattern that is not simply ad hoc. Liturgy is grounded in repetition, not improvisation. Its stable framework shapes community worship from week to week. The order of a service may be adjusted for a special season or reason, but the framework remains largely unchanged. Liturgical pattern call us to let go of our compulsion to lead or plunge ahead in any way we want. their rhythms draw us into established patterns of attending to God. They give us space to use our voice, find our words, name our sin, hear God’s Word and gaze on our Creator.
Though our age tends to value spontaneity and individuality, a growing number of people are searching the depths of liturgical prayer. Alongside the popularity of conversational prayer, with its up-to-the-minute spontaneity, stands the desire to be rooted in something ancient that has survived the centuries. Liturgy can reach back thousands of years to the early church practice of daily prayer, which included the Lord’s Prayer and the Psalms.
The prayer rhythms known as the common lectionary guide the church through the Old and New Testaments with readings connected to the celebration of church seasons. There are readings and prayers that guide the church through Advents, Epiphany, Lent, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Easter, Pentecost and Ordinary Time. Following the reactionary readings assures that the church continually hears the redemption story year after year, season after season. Even the unpopular or difficult parts of Scripture are included in the lectionary readings. Churches that embrace the lectionary bind their scattered and diverse communities into a unified chorus of worship. (Typically the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Episcopal and Lutheran churches follow some version of the lectionary in their liturgy).
The liturgical traditions contain vast reservoirs or prayers and collects as well as readings that take a Christian through the entire scope of the church year. By attending to the set readings found in the church lexicon, we read the entire Bible over the course of a few years.
SPIRITUAL EXERCISES:
- Explore the practice of liturgical prayer through using the book The Divine Hours by Phillis Tickle or The Daily Office of the Catholic Church.
- Check out A Guide to Prayer for Ministries and Other Servants or A Guide to Prayer for All God’s People published by The Upper Room. These books provide readings and prayers for daily use.
- Use The Book of Common Prayer. Pray the Psalms in the back of the book or collects fort he particular week. What is this like for you?
- Ask someone who uses written prayers to talk to you about their prayer life. How do these prayers help them know God and grow in faith?