Nov. 12, 2014

Every Monday through Friday morning from 7:15 – 7:45, unless I'm out of town, I read Daily Morning Prayer in the Chapel.  I began this practice just over two years ago on September 4, 2012.  For a brief while, there were as many as eight people who joined me.  Shortly thereafter, it became one; but that one other person and I shared Morning Prayer most every day through 2013.  Schedules changed and the one was gone, but they were replaced by an unexpected two who came most days through this summer.  Sometimes a random third person would join us.  Schedules again changed and most days now it's just me.

I tell you this not in an attempt to guilt any of you into attending Morning Prayer so that I'm not alone, but because of something Bishop Michael said awhile ago:  It takes about two years of a person consistently saying the Daily Offices for it to really sink in.

I am certainly finding that to be true.  Silences are more focused.  Prayers are more intentional.  The rhythm of the service is becoming more ingrained.  Words have more depth.

As I read the Daily Office, what has recently jumped out at me has been joy.

The confession bids us to be strengthened in all goodness.  The Venite asks us to shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.  The Jubilate asks us to be joyful in the Lord.  Canticle after Canticle talks about singing praises to the Lord, nations streaming to God's light, our spirit rejoicing in God our Savior, singing the praises of God's name, and praising the glory of God in general.  To close out Morning Prayer, the General Thanksgiving is a prayer so full of joy that it is hard to read without feeling like God has wrapped me in a thick blanket on a cold winter's day.

For the vast majority of our congregation, Sunday Holy Eucharist is the only worship service attended; and that's okay.  I am willing to bet that the majority of our congregation have been attending an Episcopal church for more than five years; some probably much longer.  Which means that the words of our worship have had time to sink in and become the fabric of your spiritual lives.

Have you paid attention to this?  Are the times of silence becoming more God-focused?  Are your prayers more intentional?  Have the words of our worship developed depth, taking on a meaning more that what you are reading on the page?

The 9 a.m. adult formation class is currently going through Revelation.  Every time worship is mentioned in that book, it's a joyful and exuberant vision (5:6-14 and 7:9-17 are two examples).  Do we experience our worship as a joyful time?  Do we recognize those joyful words that appear in our worship, or do we read them as just mere words between pages 355-365?  How might you be different if you worshiped with that same sense of joy that Revelation, the Canticles and our prayers offer?

I'm convinced that the routine of the liturgy has sunk in and become part of the fabric of your spiritual lives.  I challenge you to go deeper and let the joyful essence of our worship transform you.

Amen.