Episcopal Church
of the Good Shepherd
SERVICES
SUNDAY AT 8:00 AM (2nd & 3rd Sundays)
SUNDAY AT 10:30 AM (every Sunday)
WEDNESDAY AT 6:00 PM (in Chapel)
Prayer in the Anglican Tradition
In the Anglican tradition, there are three kinds of prayer:
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1. Prayer of Worship
This is the prayer we practice in community on Sundays, centered around Holy Communion. This prayer can only happen in community with our fellow Christians. To see what our communal prayer looks like, you can watch our Sunday worship at our YouTube channel or you can read the service of Holy Eucharist in the Book of Common Prayer.​
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2. Prayer of the Daily Office
This is the ancient communal prayer of the Church, built around the recitation of the psalms and canticles from Scripture, along with reading passages from the Old and New Testaments. Even though its origins are communal, the Daily Office can be prayed alone or with others. Even when we pray it by ourselves, we are joined to all others who have prayed it through the ages and who are praying it with us across the world.
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3. Prayer of Contemplation
This is the private prayer of our heart, prayer that grounds and centers us throughout the day in the knowledge and love of Jesus. This prayer can only happen in solitude.
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The prayer of worship will happen at least once a week; the prayer of the Daily Office will happen at least twice a day, at Morning and Evening Prayer; and the prayer of contemplation will happen throughout the day. Taken together, Worship, Daily Office, and Contemplation are the warp and weft of our life, a web of prayer that cradles us and holds our hearts near to God.
The word "office" comes from the Latin word "officium," meaning duty. Our daily prayer is the offering to God that we render to him. Scripture tells us that we are "a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people," and it is our duty to "proclaim the mighty acts of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light." (I Peter 2:9)
Daily Office
The Daily Office arose out of the ancient Jewish hours of prayer, which continued to be observed by the early Christians. The center of the Office for two thousand years has always been the Psalms, which were and are the chief Christian prayerbook. We pray the Psalms daily in the Office, along with passages from Scripture.
You can learn more about the structure and pattern of the Daily Office by going here.
