Anglican Service Book
Church of Good Shepherd, Rosemont
The Daily Office
History
From the beginning, the worship of the people of God has been not just a weekly, but a daily affair. The sanctification of time by acts of prayer and praise at specific times during the day was a practice of venerable age at the beginning of the Christian era, and one can find clear indications of it in the Scriptures of the Old as well as of the New Testament. The writings of the early Fathers of the Church bear abundant witness to the keeping of hours of prayer, both privately and corporately.
Initially, the Daily Office consisted simply of morning and evening prayers, together with the reading of Scripture and portions of the Psalter. As the monastic movement began to gain influence, the Daily Office became more complex, even in parish and cathedral churches. This is not unnatural, given the fact that major churches were frequently, even typically, served by monastic or other regular communities whose members were obliged to say all the offices. (In the classical form, there are seven day offices—Matins, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline—and one night office—Vigils.) Over a period of time, the offices became increasingly complicated. This increased complexity, combined with the abandonment of the vernacular tongue in public prayer, made it exceedingly difficult for ordinary men and women to participate in the daily prayer of the Church.
One of the beneficial effects of the Reformation in England was a deliberate effort to simplify the Daily Office so that both clergy and laity could participate in its offering. Morning Prayer was based upon the Medieval office of Matins together with elements from Prime. Evening Prayer was, in its essence, a combination of Vespers and Compline. But the Office as a whole was revised around the importance of regular recitation of the Psalter, reading of the whole of Scripture, and set prayer. This gives the Anglican Office its distinctive character. In more recent times, Sext (Noonday Prayer) and Compline have been restored for optional use in various Anglican Prayer Books, such as the American Book of 1979.
By Scriptural example and ancient canonical precept, the clergy are obliged to recite the Office every day, and it is the clear intent of every Anglican prayer book since 1549 that the Office be a daily Office. Local modifications of this precept (such as the implied permission in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer to use only one office in the day) do not overthrow the principle that the recitation should be daily. The establishment of a regular schedule of publicly offered daily offices is an essential element to the fullness of parochial life for the laity as well as the clergy.
Purpose
The purpose of the Daily Office is two-fold: First, it serves to sanctify time, or perhaps more accurately, to remind us in the time it takes for our offering of the office that all time is sacred, since all time belongs to God. Herein is embodied the same principle that lies behind the stewardship of our material resources: All that we have belongs to God, and we render a portion of it to him in sacrificial remembrance of that fact. The consequence of the faithful rendering of this service is the fulfillment of the second purpose of the Daily Office, which is the sanctification, both of those who pray it, and of the Church for which they pray.