INCE THE EXPIRY of the Alternative Service Book 1980, the Church of England has had only two authorised forms of the Daily Office:


- the order for Morning and Evening Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer (hereafter BCP); and
- 'A Service of the Word', an outline service first authorised ten years ago.

Having two authorised forms remains - and is likely to remain - the position after the publication of the preliminary edition of Common Worship: Daily Prayer (hereafter CWDP) earlier this year.

CWDP is the successor to Celebrating Common Prayer (hereafter CCP). Both owe a good deal to the Roman Catholic Divine Office, or Liturgy of the Hours, of 1971. And yet both CCP and CWDP are no more than outworkings of the authorised 'A Service of the Word'. One could go further and say that those in the Church of England who use the Roman Catholic Divine Office are simply using an outworking of 'A Service of the Word'. Similar claims could be made by those who a whole variety of daily offices, home made or otherwise.

For those in the Catholic tradition, the Office is not simply a helpful form of prayer and a helpful collection of prayers but part of the cycle of prayer and praise that ascends to the throne of God from the Church throughout the world and throughout the ages. There is objectivity about this praying: it is something that the Church does. There are expressions of relationship in this praying: a relationship with fellow Christians, certainly, but an expression also, as the Divine Office says, of being a son of God by adoption. I pray my Office and know myself to be God's son by adoption as I pray. It is part of this business of praying, then, that I use the forms of prayer that the Church asks me to use. To those who look to me for extended episcopal care, I have certain suggestions about praying the Office and about lectionaries. I have also included a short evaluation of CWDP.

I. About Praying the Office
- For those in the Western Catholic tradition, amid amazing variety, the choice should be limited to BCP, CWDP or the Divine Office.
- Those who sought to use the Divine Office would be able nonetheless to use the version of it in A Manual of Anglo-Catholic Devotion should they so wish to.
- For clergy, the pattern of BCP is twofold, the pattern of CWDP and the Divine Office is four or fivefold (Lauds and Vespers, complemented by an Office of Readings and/or Prayer during the Day and Compline).
- In the spirit of both BCP and the Divine Office, the laity should be invited to join in public recitation of Morning and Evening Prayer in the parish church wherever this is feasible.
- In the spirit of CWDP, there is a reduced diet of two offices - Prayer During the Day and Night Prayer. This would make an admirable diet for many laity.
- Such a reduced diet might be a suitably modest goal for clergy whose ability to join in the full Office is affected by clinical depression, infirmity or sickness.
- For the monastic pattern of seven offices there is extra material in both CWDP and the Divine Office. This extra facility should not be attempted by those who do not live under a monastic rule of life.
- A good suggestion of CWDP is that any new pattern that is tried is kept in place for a month - or, perhaps one might say, a season. Nothing less will do if the riches of the pattern are to be at least partially discovered.
- A practical guide to CWDP is available in a book by Jeremy Fletcher and Gilly Myers, Using Common Worship, Church House Publishing 2002, £9.95. (To declare another interest, I contributed the introductory essay to this book).
- A good hymn book for the Office (whether CWDP or Divine Office) is Hymns for Prayer and Praise (Canterbury Press 1996). Each hymn is set to both plainsong and a modern tune. Those looking for a good supply of office hymns in main hymn books will find a better selection in English Hymnal than in New English Hymnal.
- It would be worth producing seasonal booklets (CWDP is on the web) for weekday Morning and Evening Prayer in public.

II. About Lectionaries
- CWDP works very well if 'short readings' are used at Morning and Evening Prayer (an Old Testament one in the morning and a New Testament one in the evening). These 'short readings' can be found in the provision for Prayer During the Day.
- The 'long readings' for the day are then read during Prayer During the Day, making it less of a midday office and more an Office of Readings, to which can be added a patristic or other non-biblical reading.
- CWDP comes in a preliminary edition not least because the Church of England Weekday Lectionary is authorised only for a short period. Anxieties remain about repetitive psalmody and about the Second Office/Alternative Office column, which is a series of purple passages rather than a serial of lectio continua.
- Whatever form of Office is used, a perfectly adequate pattern of 'long readings', especially for lay people at home, is provided by the Mass Readings - whether in Sunday/Weekday Missal format or using a bible and a set of references on the Sunday pew sheet.
- Handling a bible ensures that people learn their way round the bible.
- For those who are intrigued by the 'Optional Lectionary' mentioned in para. 161 of 'The General Instruction on The Liturgy of the Hours' - an 'Optional Lectionary' which has never materialised - there would be something to be said for using any of the following for the second reading in the Office of Readings: Atwell, R, Celebrating the Saints, Canterbury Press 1998; Atwell, R, Celebrating the Seasons, Canterbury Press 1999; Rowell, G, Stevenson, K, and Williams, R, Love's Redeeming Work Oxford 2001.
- For those unafraid of 'mix and match', CWDP with the psalm scheme and the 'long' scripture readings of the Divine Office and non-biblical readings from Celebrating the Saints/Seasons or Love's Redeeming Work would be a very good diet. This would take a little working out but A Manual of Anglo-Catholic Devotion has got some helpful psalm tables.

III. Short Evaluation of Common Worship: Daily Prayer
To begin with, three regrets. I was a member of the Liturgical Commission that produced the Psalter and much of it is admirable. My first regret is that the clear Christological use of the masculine singular - as in the first version of Psalm 8 - did not commend itself to a broader constituency. Many psalms about the suffering, righteous man are now, apparently, psalms about suffering, righteous people and Christ is less visible, therefore. This trend, I think - sad to say - has been culturally irresistible.

My second regret: I wish that the Daily Office Group, of which I was a member, had borrowed not only the Roman shapes - which work very well - but also more of the Roman material. It would have been wonderful to be using the same psalms and canticles as the universal Church and at the same time. In that sense, I regret that CWDP is so original! Would that, like Common Worship Order 1 Eucharist, it was more like the Roman provision. There is still time to ask the Church of England, when it reviews the Preliminary Edition, to adopt the Roman daily pattern of psalmody, at least permissively.

My third regret (and here you can seek to influence things as the Preliminary Edition is evaluated) is that, unlike the Breviary, CWDP is not self-sufficient. To make it self-sufficient might require a few more biblical passages. More necessary still is the inclusion of psalm and lectionary tables. Without such tables the book does not begin to work. (As the Ad Clerum said earlier, it would be very possible to bring into service the Roman psalm and canticle patterns). In a study or choir stall one might have a lectionary and a Bible available. It is not so easy on the bus or on the beach.

Despite these three regrets, I think CWDP is a marvellous piece of work - and I can say that because my episcopal ordination prevented me taking part in the second half of the work of the Daily Office Group. Alongside the three regrets, I put three hopes. First, I hope that those who are not securely moored to the Roman Divine Office - as, admittedly, I myself am - will give CWDP a go. Second, I hope that those who are wedded, understandably, to the Book of Common Prayer's Matins and Evensong will nonetheless use the modern lectionaries: there is nothing sacrosanct about the 1961 lectionary! Third, I hope that even those of us who are securely moored to the Roman Divine Office will experiment with some of the enrichment of CWDP. Unlike Celebrating Common Prayer (which understandably attracted some criticism because it was 'an office' rather than 'the office of the Church'), CWDP is the new Office.

IV. Using the Office
A new form of Office invites us once more to explore the use of the Office.Here are four questions: first, is the vision of the Second Vatican Council and the liturgical movement that lay people should participate in the Office - particularly Lauds and Vespers - happening in our parishes? Second, have we explored fully how people, day by day in their own homes, can join liturgically in part of the Prayer of the Church?** Third, have we looked sufficiently hard at the way the Office is celebrated in Church? So much can be achieved by proper lighting and heating, proper use of space, proper use of candles and incense, a proper focus on the Blessed Sacrament, exposed for adoration. Fourthly - and most important - have we forgotten about silent prayer, adoration and contemplation, space for meditation, space for reflection after readings and homilies? In short, have we taken the Office on weekdays as seriously yet as Sunday Mass? Sunday Mass is unquestionably more important but without Monday to Saturday spirituality, Sunday Mass itself is weakened.

+ Andrew Ebbsfleet
8 December 2002, Advent 2 AD2002

** An excellent scheme for lay participation - individuals and groups - is DAILY PRAYER 2003, published by LTP (Liturgy Training Publications), ISBN 1-56854-395-5. Though, like many such schemes, it is self-contained rather than a version of the Divine Office, it does follow the liturgical year closely and does make use of the Grail Psalter.

Originally published as AD CLERUM 2002/2 and dated 5 March 2002 Commemoration of St Piran, Patron of Cornish Workers (Feast in Truro).

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