Prayer, Liturgy, and Worship
September 23rd, 2009 by Sean
For some time now I have been incorporating written prayers into my morning prayer time. I have been using prayers which I believe come from the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) which was nicely laid out day by day for the summer in the prayer manual Phyllis Tickle compiled called Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime. Most of the liturgy/written prayers are actually direct quotations from the Psalms. Furthermore, there is a daily reading of just a few verses from the Gospels and then there are two extra-biblical prayers at the end. I have found that by incorporating this structure it has actually really helped me to be disciplined and enjoy a certain freedom. I still pray “spontaneously” or “from the heart” during my prayer time as well. In fact, with many things, I think this is a case where it might be helpful to take a “bothand” policy rather than “either/or.” Here is a short video clip, I just found, where N.T. Wright speaks on the matter.