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The Anglican Office of Compline during the period from the 12th to the 14th C. before the separation of the Church of England from the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome and the first English Book of Common Prayer (1549), differed in form from the other daily offices cited earlier in this series of Blog Posts. It began with an verse and response Invocation, featured more Versicles and Reponses based on the Psalms, and did not have a Confession of reading of the Lord’s Prayer. The version used in the AIC Bookstore Publication, Hear Us, O Lord: Daily Prayers for the Laity, included this Closing Prayer before the final Versicles/Reponses and the Blessing. The closing prayer is very much in the Guardian Angel tradition and reflects St. Peter’s warning concerning the devil (the enemy) walking about as roaring as a lion “seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8, 9), which is read after the Invocation . In my family we say all the Hourly Offices on Sundays when we are not able to attend a Holy Communion service.

VISIT, we beseech Thee, O Lord, our habitations, and drive far from them all the snares of the enemy.
Let Thy holy angels abide in them to preserve us in peace,
And let Thy blessing be ever upon us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I hope you have found this series of Hours prayers helpful in coping with the stresses of daily level in our anti-Christian world.

Today’s posting is the Third Prayer for Vespers, which I adapted from two Russian and Greek Orthodox evening prayers. The full text of the office is found on pp. 114-120 in the AIC Bookstore Publication, Hear Us, O Lord: Daily Prayers for the Laity. The traditional time for Vespers is 5 PM. This text is the most spiritual-minded of the prayers in the several daily offices.

O LORD my God, thou art a good God, Lover of mankind and Guardian of my soul and body; Forgive me the sins I have committed this day in thought, word or deed; Send thy Guardian angel to protect and keep me from all evil this night; Grant me peaceful and undisturbed sleep and keep me from all ill dreams and dark pleasures; Bless me, O Lord, and have mercy upon me; Grant me to rise in the morning to live chastely in deed and word; Implant in my heart a desire to fulfill Thy commandments, and to forsake evil deeds, and to obtain Thy blessings; for in Thee, O Lord, have I hoped; blessed art thou for ever and ever.  Amen.

The final post for this series from the traditional hourly offices will be a Compline prayer, from the last office for the day, usually said before bedtime.

For Ninth Hour (3 PM), the traditional time associated with Christ’s death upon the Cross, here is an Anglican Ninth Hour prayer in the English tradition. The full text of Ninth Hour is found on pages 107 to 113 in the AIC Bookstore Publication, Hear Us, O Lord: Daily Prayers for the Laity.

O LORD Jesus Christ, who for our sakes didst tread the paths of death; make known to us the way of life; that as Thou was reckoned with the transgressors in Thy death, and with the rich in Thy burial, so we, who are dead in trespasses and sins, may be raised up by Thee to the land of true riches; who liveth and reigneth with the Father and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Glory be to God for all things! Amen!

Today I offer readers the First Prayer for Sixth Hour from our Bookstore Publication, Hear Us, O Lord: Daily Prayers for the Laity, based upon an early Eastern Orthodox prayer. The format for Sixth Hour is: Invocation, First Prayer, General Confession, Lord’s Prayer, First Chapter (a Scripture reading), First Antiphon, Second Prayer, Second Antiphon, Third Prayer, Third Antiphon, Fourth Prayer, Psalm reading, Third Chapter, F0urth Antiphon, Fifth Prayer, Fifth Antiphon, Sixth Prayer, the Grace, a Benection.

ALMIGHTY Saviour, who at noonday called Thy servant Saint Paul to be an Apostle to the Gentiles: We pray Thee to illumine the world with the radiance of Thy glory that all nations shall come and worship Thee. Amen.

The second in this summer series of daily blog posts suitable for observation of the “Hours” is this highly-spiritual Third Prayer adapted from a circa 5th C. prayer in the Syrian Jacobite tradition. The full text of the office is found in Part Three in the AIC Bookstore Publication: Hear Us, O Lord: Daily Prayers for the Laity. Third Hour, the second of the traditional Hours offices, is traditionally celebrated around 9 A.M.

CREATOR of the morning, who drove out the darkness and brings light and joy to thy creation;
create in us habits of virtue and drive from us all darkness of sin;
give us light and joy by the glorious rays of thy grace, O Lord our God, for ever and ever. Amen.

In this rapidly anti-religious world, there is comfort in the words of many of the earliest teachings of the Church Universal. One of these is found in the First Hour Office isn the AIC Bookstore Publication, Hear Us, O Lord: Daily Prayer for the Laity, which I adapted from the 1st C. Liturgy of St. Mark, one of the early liturgies of the Church Universal. First Hour is traditionally said around 6 AM. The prayer reflects Christian humility in the presence of the Lord and the understanding of Who it is Who is master of this world and the next — no matter what we may hear otherwise!

We give thee thanks, O Lord our God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for all thy goodness at all times and in all places, because thou hast shielded, rescued and guided us all the days of our lives and brought us to this morning hour, permitting us again to stand before thee and implore forgiveness for our sins. We pray and beseech thee, merciful God, to grant in thy goodness that we may spend this day and all the time of our lives without sin, in fulness of joy, health, safety, holiness and reverence of thee; Drive away from us all envy, fear, temptation, the influence of Satan and the snares of wicked men. Amen,

Thank you to our regular followers and occasional viewers for your patience during the interruption in Blog postings. The combined effects of Carpal Tunnel surgery on both the right and left hand made it extremely difficult to operate a computer keyboard. The stitches for the second surgery were removed on Thursday. Typing is still awkward while my hands fully heal. I look forward to being able to produce some longer pieces later this month.

The Podcast Homily for Morning Prayer in our new Psalter Series for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity was uploaded yesterday. The Psalm reading is Psalm 144 (which is Psalm 143 in the Vulgate version). For more details on Psalm 144 and all its uses in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, see the notations on that Psalm in our Bookstore Publication, The Prayer Book Psalter: History, Text & Commentary. In the companion volume, The Prayer Book Psalter: Picture Book Edition, there are two illuminations from the Stuttgart Psalter, produced in the Scriptorium, Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, Paris, circa 820.

Work continues on our latest book project, Angels: In Scripture, Prayer & Christian Tradition. I am waiting a high-resolution image from The Lovell Lectionary, depicting two angels bearing an icon of the Blessed Virgin and the Infant Christ, produced at Glastonbury, England, 1400-1410, and another depicting the dialogue between God and Satan c0ncerning Job from Job 1:6-12, from an early edition of the Bible Historiale, made in Paris, 1st. Qtr., 15th C. The are being digitized by the British Library at their faciity in West Yorkshire, England. I do not expect to receive these until early September.

As always, thank you for your interest and support. Production of our books is made possible by your donations and by book royalties. Glory be to God for all things! Amen!

I want to thank our newest followers of this Blog as well as those who have been with us for a long time. Owing to recent and pending surgeries related to Carpal Tunnel issues, I will be unable to post regularly until the 2nd week of August. Presently, the left hand is restricted, then the right hand’s turn is next week. As I am completely right-handed the use of a keyboard will be next to impossible. I have already recorded the Podcast Homilies for Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Sundays after Trinity, uploaded them to our Podcast vendor site and linked them to the Podcast Homilies-Morning Prayer and the Welcome page.

Thank you for your patience during this three-week absence from the Web. During this period I am hopeful that the final two images needed for Angels: The Book will arrive from the British Library. I have already placed nine other high-resolutions images from the same source into the body of the book.

Podcast Homily for T-6 now available. Short msg owing to Carpal tunnel surgery. 100 dpi from Stuttgart Psalter (circa 820) illustrating Ps. 16:11. Cod. Bibl. Fol.23.Wurttembergische Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart, Germany.

The Podcast Homily for Fifth Sunday after Trinity in our new series of Podcast Homilies for Morning Prayer focused on the appointed Psalm was uploaded to our Podbean site and linked from the Welcome and Morning Prayer H0milies pages. The appointed readins for the day are Psalm 62 and Psalm 63. Since Psalm 62 was read and commented upon earlier in this series on the First Sunday in Lent, only Psalm 63 is discussed in the Podcast. In addition to the actual reading, I discuss commentary upon Psalm 63 from three great saints of the early Church. From the Eastern Church tradition is Basil of Caesarea (also known as Basil the Great) and his brother Gregory of Nyssa. From the Western Church tradition I quote commentary by Augustine of Hippo. The illustration for Psalm 63 in the companion volume, The Prayer Book Psalter: Picture Book Edition. A 100 dpi version is posted below. The version used in the PBP-PBE is 300 dpi. I thank Wurttembergische Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart, Germany, for its cooperation in the production of the book (which is available using the Virtual Bookstore link on the Welcome page of this site).

I thought to share with you a brief story about the production of our project, Angels: the Book. I was confident that I was nearing the end of the preparation cycle when, for whatever reason, I expanded the scope of the book to include more images of Satan, the Fallen Angel. I had placed the text of the God-Satan dialogue concerning Job from Job 1 into the book, but had no image to go with it. My search of the resources of the British Library, London, using the words Satan, God and Job revealed 83 possible sources, each with multiple possible images. When I do these these searches I review the miniature images, which can be none to hundreds of images. After hours and hours of looking at material that could not be used owing to lack of relevance or poor picture quality or content, I was on item number 83 of 83 without success when I found a page from the start of Job from an early edition of a book I had used in other publications. The volume, Bible Historiale, is a French production from the 15th C. based upon the earlier work of Guyart des Moulins in the 13th C. in France. After editing the image for alignment, brightness and clarity of content, I added it as Illustration No. 49, which meant that Illustrations No. 50 to 146 had to be renumbered, plus adding the image required the addition of two pages, which action meant that all the pages from Page 60 to Page 226 had to be renumbered, all the pages numbers in the Table of Contents and all the cross-references adjusted for Illustration number and page number. Two days later, thanks to the book designer’s system of searching for a specific word, phrase or number, the necessary changes were made. The current version is now complete through the final chapter, Angels in Popular Culture. The volume now has 236 pages with 147 images from the 3rd to the 21st C. About a dozen images will need to be photographed again in high-resolution format before the final layout of the book can begin.

As always, thank you for your interest and support. Glory be to God for all things! Amen!