The Daily Office: Morning and Evening Prayer Explained

The Daily Office is the church’s pattern of prayer at fixed hours of the day, chiefly Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, made up of psalms, scripture readings, canticles and set prayers. “Office” comes from the Latin officium, a duty or service. It is also called the Divine Office, the Liturgy of the Hours or simply fixed-hour prayer, and it is prayed by Anglicans, Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans and a growing number of Christians in other traditions.

The idea is simple. Instead of waiting until you feel like praying, you let the clock call you to prayer, and you use words the church has prayed for centuries. On days when you have little to say, the psalms say it for you.

Where fixed-hour prayer comes from

Praying at set times is older than the church. The psalmist says, “Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous ordinances” (Psalm 119:164), and “Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint” (Psalm 55:17). In exile, even under threat of the lions’ den, Daniel went to his upper room, where the windows opened toward Jerusalem, and continued “to get down on his knees three times a day to pray to his God and praise him, just as he had done previously” (Daniel 6:10).

The first Christians carried the habit on. Peter and John went up to the temple “at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon” (Acts 3:1), and Peter went up on the roof to pray “about noon” (Acts 10:9). The Didache, an early Christian manual, told believers to pray the Lord’s Prayer three times a day.

The monastic hours

In the monasteries the hours grew into a full daily cycle. The Rule of Saint Benedict, written in the sixth century, quotes Psalm 119:164 and sets out seven day offices with a night office besides: Vigils (or Matins) in the night, Lauds at dawn, Prime, Terce, Sext and None through the day, Vespers in the evening and Compline before sleep. Benedict called this the Opus Dei, the work of God, and wrote that nothing should be put before it.

The Book of Common Prayer

At the English Reformation, Thomas Cranmer wanted ordinary people, not only monks and clergy, to pray the Office. In the Book of Common Prayer of 1549 he folded the monastic hours into two services in English: Mattins (Morning Prayer) and Evensong (Evening Prayer). The psalms were read right through every month and most of the Bible every year. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer kept this pattern, and Anglican churches around the world still pray it, alongside modern forms such as Common Worship: Daily Prayer and the daily offices of other Anglican provinces.

The Liturgy of the Hours

In the Catholic Church the Office was revised after the Second Vatican Council and published as the Liturgy of the Hours. Its main hours are the Office of Readings, Morning Prayer (Lauds), Daytime Prayer, Evening Prayer (Vespers) and Night Prayer (Compline), with the psalms arranged over four weeks. Morning and Evening Prayer are called the two hinges on which the day turns.

Other traditions

Lutheran churches keep Matins, Vespers and Compline in their service books. The Orthodox Church prays a full round of hours, with Vespers and Matins at its heart. Many Reformed, Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal and non-denominational Christians have taken up fixed-hour prayer too, often through shorter daily office books.

What happens in Morning and Evening Prayer

Forms vary between books, but the bones are much the same:

• An opening sentence and versicle, such as “O Lord, open our lips, and our mouth shall proclaim your praise” (from Psalm 51:15).
• Confession, in many Anglican forms.
• A psalm or psalms. Morning Prayer often begins with the Venite (Psalm 95) or the Jubilate (Psalm 100).
• Scripture readings, usually one from the Old Testament and one from the New, following a lectionary.
• A canticle, a song from scripture. In the morning, the Benedictus, the song of Zechariah (Luke 1:68-79). In the evening, the Magnificat, the song of Mary (Luke 1:46-55), and the Nunc Dimittis, the song of Simeon (Luke 2:29-32).
• The Creed, in many forms.
• Prayers: the Lord’s Prayer, the collect of the day and intercessions for the church and the world.

Compline, or Night Prayer, is shorter and gentler, a way of handing the day back to God. Its psalms (often Psalm 4, 91 or 134) and the Nunc Dimittis make it a favourite for people new to the Office.

How to begin the Daily Office simply

1. Choose one office. Morning Prayer or Compline is the usual starting point. Keep that one for a season before adding another.
2. Choose one book or app and stay with it. Use what your church uses if you can: the Book of Common Prayer, Common Worship: Daily Prayer, the Liturgy of the Hours (or the shorter Shorter Christian Prayer), a Lutheran service book, or a simple daily office book from your own tradition.
3. Fix the time to something you already do. Before breakfast, on the train, after the children are in bed. The hour matters less than the regularity.
4. Say it aloud, even quietly. The psalms were written to be prayed with the voice, and speaking them helps attention.
5. Do not worry about getting it right. If you lose your place or miss the collect, carry on. The Office is a gift, not an examination.
6. Expect dry days. Many days the Office will feel ordinary. That is the point: it keeps you praying when feelings come and go.

If even ten minutes feels like too much, begin with a psalm, the Lord’s Prayer and the collect for the week. That is already a small office, and it can grow.

Praying the Office with others

The Office has always been the prayer of a community. Even when you pray it alone you join a great company across the world praying the same psalms on the same day. Praying it with one or two others, in person or at the same hour from different places, makes it much easier to keep.

Many small groups write the Office into a shared rule of life: Morning Prayer most days, perhaps Compline on weeknights, and a review each season of how it is going. The Office follows the church year, so its readings, collects and canticles change with Advent, Lent and Easter. Its psalms and readings also lend themselves to lectio divina: one phrase from the morning psalm, carried into the day.

How Ordo helps

Ordo is an iPhone app for keeping a rule of life with a few people, and it offers the Daily Office. Alongside it, each day asks three small things of the group: a written reflection, a response to the day’s scripture and a short check-in on the commitments in your rule, about ten minutes in all. Reflections are revealed only when everyone has written.

Ordo follows the Western church year, and its prompts and readings turn with the season. There are no streaks, badges or guilt notifications: if you miss a morning, the Office is still there the next day. Ordo is in beta on iPhone; join the waitlist to keep the hours with a few others.