Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer 1979 [BCP] says that "Christian prayer is response to God the Father, through Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit," and that "prayer is responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words."
One form of daily prayer used by Anglicans throughout the centuries is the "saying" of the Daily Office. The modern Daily Office as found in the BCP is distilled from the ancient monastic tradition of praying the Hours. A tradition that continues in monestaries and convents to this day. The Hours consist of Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None [pronounced sort of like "known"], Vespers, and Compline, in addition to a-night office called Matins. The modern Daily Office (in both traditional [Rite I] language and contempoary [Rite II] language) consists primarially of Morning Prayer (called Matins by some) and Evening Prayer (called Eveningsong by some), along with the less often used Noonday (rooted in Sext), Worship for the Evening (rooted in Vespers), and Compline. The BCP also includes shortend forms of the Daily Office for use by individuals and families, with outlines given for Morning, Noon, Early Evening, and Close of Day. While the BCP has all the directions (called rubrics) and such for all the modern Daily Offices [see page 19 and following of the PDF version or page 36 and following of the printed version available from most bookstores], we would also recommend checking out Morning Prayer and Compline with Lectionary by The Rev. WIlliam O. Swan, Jr. [©2002, ISBN 0-9726018-0-5] if you can find a copy of this out-of-print text. And online there are helpful resources at Mission Saint Claire and Emerging Church. Additionally, you can find each day's Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, complete with the current day's appointed Psalms, Canticles, and Lectionary (Scripture) readings from unsogno.net/dailyoffice/.
Many members of the Anglican Communion around the globe join together in using the Daily Anglican Cycle of Prayer [ACP] in praying for different parts of the Church. The ACP cycles through the prayers once every two years. This year therefore began with prayers on 1 January for the the Diocese of Liberia in The Church of the Province of West Africa and on 31 December there will be prayers for the Diocese of Zululand in The Anglican Church of Southern Africa. And as a better of example of the global spread of the Anglican Communion - on 1 July 2009 there will be prayers for the Dioceses of Perth, Perth-Goldfields Country Region, Perth-Northern Region, and Perth-Southern Region in The Province of Western Australia in The Anglican Church of Australia, on 2 July there will be prayers for The Diocese of Peru in La Iglesia Anglicana del Cono Sur de América, on 3 July there will be prayers for the Diocese of Peshawar in the Church of Pakistan, and on the next day, 4 July, there will be prayers for the Dioceses of Peterborough and Peterborough-Brixworth in The Church of England.
View the 2009 Anglican Cycle of Prayer in PDF Format
Download the 2009 Anglican Cycle of Prayer in PDF Format
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View the current week's Anglican Cycle of Prayer in HTML
