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This Week’s Newsletter

Here is this week’s newsletter: St Stephens News XXVI No 42

1 comment to This Week’s Newsletter

  • The Reverend Peter M. Hawkins.

    The Daily Office of the Christian Church is mainly based upon the observance of the Synagogude where some of the ten men of the Synagogue Council and their fellows come together to observe the Morning, Midday and Evening Prayer. The form is that of the Synagogue, to read, study, and worship the Tradition received from the past. This, in the Church development, is called the “Cathedral Tradition”. At this moment my wife is listening to a form popularised as “Songs of Praise”.
    As monasticism became popular for those on the edges of society, so the need was to have a task for monks to keep themy busy and out of trouble, and so the three fold observance was extended to sevenfold, following the habit of the Temple. The Minor Orders of Franciscans popularised this amongst the Laity.
    Secular Clergy, not Monks, are required to say the Morning and Evening Prayer daily, and if they hold the Cure of a parish, then they are to do that in the Parish Church, and have the bell rung before hand, so that the Laity may come and join with them in the Daily Office of Worship.
    Here in France the report “Seigneur, ouvre nos lèvres” commends the practice of the public recitation and singing of the Daily Office to the people of the Church of France (RC) and the now many thousands of people from the Church of England, who now live in France. The French version is called “Prière du temps prèsent”.