Daily Prayer – an Anglican jewel

One of my favourite spiritual writers is the seventeenth century poet and country priest George Herbert. Herbert is justly celebrated as one of the great "metaphysical poets" of the 17^th century, but is also remembered as a pattern of parish ministry. Whilst Vicar of Bemerton, near Salisbury, he wrote a short book entitled "The Country Parson", which, with the Puritan Richard Baxter's, "The Reformed Pastor", was very much a text book for parish life.

The Church that Herbert drew together in Bemerton was clearly a community. It was not, as so many churches can be, a group of individuals who happened to meet in worship at the same time, to pursue their separate agendas with the Lord, but a fellowship who delighted to come to worship and pray together, and who supported and encouraged one another, and their parish priest himself.

There is a famous description of weekdays in Bemerton, which is recorded by one of Herbert's earliest biographers. We are given a picture of the church bell ringing for Morning or Evening Prayer, of people gathering in large numbers to share in this daily prayer in Church, and of others working in the fields stopping for a few moments to pray when they heard the bell. The picture of the people of God in Bemerton is perhaps a little idealised, but is close enough to reality to give us a genuine picture of a Christian community united in prayer.

What Herbert and his people did day by day is often held up as something to be remarked upon, something unusual, but in fact it is part and parcel of the way Christians have prayed together from very earliest times.

In the recent "Living Tradition" course we discovered how Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, in composing the first Book of Common Prayer in the mid sixteenth century, envisaged that the priests in each parish would say Morning and Evening Prayer each day in Church, and would ring the Church bell so that others could join them. We discovered that this was a radical step, wresting the Daily Prayer from the Clergy and putting it back into the hands of the whole church, and we discovered that the idea of people gathering each day in their parish church dates to the early centuries, and is being fruitfully renewed in many places in own time.

All Christian prayer is corporate, whether we be together or alone. It is always part of the prayer of the whole Body, and we do not come to God separate or isolated, but as part of a community of faith. Our little prayers are but part of a greater offering, a company of voices, offering prayer and praise to God through Christ and in the power of the Spirit. To share in common forms which others are using throughout the Church, not just in our own part of it, can be a powerful reminder of this truth - it can sustain us through dry times, reminding us that it does not all depend on us.

Now, seventeenth century Bemerton is a very different place from twenty-first century West Wirral, and culture and life-styles are very different too. However, the principle of a daily offering of prayer and praise in church continues - from Monday to Saturday at 7.45am and 5.00pm the bell is rung and Malcolm and I, and a few others, gather for prayer, saying a Psalm, reading from Scripture and a time of Intercession - there is also a lot of silence. Sometimes we are on our own, as sadly many priests are, but we have a sense that other are praying in a similar way as individuals and communities in other places. We are also aware that there are some people who try and offer a prayer at that time, or who use the daily reading and prayer that we print on the News-sheet as part of their personal prayers. 'Though apart, we are still together - a true "company of voices".

We would dearly love others to join with us, once or twice or more often in the week, and this letter comes as an invitation to those who are able to come along during Lent either in the morning or especially in the evening. In the morning we will still use the Lady Chapel, but in the evenings in Lent we will use the Chancel, sitting in the stalls, gathered round the Scriptures on a Lectern - this may help us to feel more of a community and address questions of audibility. On Saturday evenings, if there are enough people, we would like to sing the responses and perhaps sing a hymn, marking out Saturday evening as a preparation for the Sunday celebration. You would be most welcome if you would like to make this part of your Lenten pattern of prayer - Malcolm and I would be encouraged by it, and we hope it will be an encouragement to you. Whatever our chosen Lenten patterns, may they lead us ever deeper into the love of our Lord.

Roger Clarke

March 2007