"Do not neglect to meet together"
Most of us who say the Daily Office pursue the practice privately, saying the services of Morning or Evening Prayer in our homes, or on planes and trains, or in stolen moments when we have a period of waiting.
Few of us, I think, belong to a parish that actually holds daily public services of Morning or Evening Prayer, despite the crystal clear rubric in the Book of Common Prayer (BCP 13). In this day and age, it's a logistical impossibility -- so few of us live anywhere near our parish church, and so few of us can make the time twice a day to go to church.
Those parishes that do have a public Office may offer one service of Evensong or one early Morning Prayer service in a week.
What has been your experience? What "meeting together" supports you in your practice of saying the Daily Office? If you don't have a chance to meet with others to pray, what kind of meeting would you like?
"And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching" (Heb. 6:24-25).
Perhaps a blog like this can serve to draw us together, or a Facebook group like the Daily Office Anchor Society (shameless plug!). Perhaps you are able to go on retreat from time to time, or perhaps you can recruit a group of pray-ers at your parish to meet once a week. What would encourage you and those around you to form the habit of daily prayer?
I'm really interested to know, so please speak up if you can.
Blessings!
1.29.2010
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