Morning and Evening Prayer
As taught in the Anglican / Episcopal tradition
Teaching the rhythm of the Daily Office as a tool for grounding life in the Psalter and Scripture.
The Anglican tradition is often described as a "middle way" (via media), but this description is most profoundly realized not in its dogmatic formulations, but in its prayer. At the heart of this prayer life lies the Daily Office—the services of Morning and Evening Prayer. The fundamental question this subtopic answers within the Anglican tradition is this: How does the Church corporately and the believer individually sanctify time and inhabit the Word of God as a continuous, rhythmic reality? In the Anglican view, worship is not an occasional event reserved for the Lord’s Day; it is the "Work of God" (Opus Dei) that frames every rising and setting of the sun. Morning and Evening Prayer are the two hinges upon which the door of the Christian day swings.
By the end of this lesson
- **Identify** the historical origins and the structural components of Morning and Evening Prayer within the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.
- **Distinguish** between the medieval monastic eight-fold office and the simplified two-fold Anglican Daily Office.
- **Explain** the theological significance of "sanctifying time" through the rhythmic use of the Psalter and the Lectionary.
- **Articulate** the role of the Canticles (e.g., *Benedictus*, *Magnificat*, *Nunc Dimittis*) as the scriptural responses to the reading of the Word.
- **Trace** the biblical precedent for set-hour prayer from the Davidic Psalms through the Apostolic practice in the Book of Acts.
- **Defend** the use of set liturgical forms (Common Prayer) as a means of corporate unity and protection against pastoral idiosyncratic preference.
- **Apply** the discipline of the Daily Office to contemporary Christian life as a "Rule of Life" for spiritual formation and ethical consistency.
- **Compare** the Anglican approach to the Daily Office with the Roman Catholic "Liturgy of the Hours" and the "Quiet Time" model of many Evangelical traditions.
Scripture
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