c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Every few months, it seems Phyllis Tickle is at it again, with a new book on the cycles of prayer _ called the Daily Offices, the Liturgy of the Hours, the Divine Hours or, as Tickle calls it, “Fixed-Hour Prayer.”

The idea is stopping every three hours for scripted prayers. Jews stop three times a day, Muslims stop five times a day and Christians _ depending on their level of observance _ stop as many as eight times a day.

The result, she said borrowing from St. Paul, is “a constant cascade of prayer before the throne of God” as a continuous cycle of prayer envelopes the world.

Tickle, an Episcopalian who lives on a farm in western Tennessee, has written prayer books for the seasons and Fixed-Hour Prayers for daytime. Her latest book, “The Night Offices” (Oxford University Press, $28), covers the Office of Midnight (10:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.), the Office of the Night Watch (1:30 a.m. to 4:30 a.m.), and the Office of Dawn (4:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m.)

Q: When and where did fixed-hour prayer begin?

A: Like tithing and the sacred meal and fasting _ no one is sure when they came into being. It’s not quite so clear, but by the time you get to King David, it’s firmly in place. It has stayed in all three of the Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Q: How do you decide how many offices to pray during the day?

A: Most laity, the best I can tell, keep six hours or maybe five. Many Christians do that. I suspect most Christians (who pray the hours) keep only four, maybe five. It is difficult to keep all of them unless one is living in a convent or monastery.

The important thing is that each believer arrives at what is most congruent with his or her own schedule and then adheres to it. You can’t decide to pray at 6 and 12 and then tomorrow pray at 9 and vespers. It doesn’t work that way.

Q: Do you really get up in the middle of the night or is this for people who already happen to be awake?

A: It certainly is for people who happen to be awake _ those who work a night shift. There are thousands of Christians who do arise at night and offer their prayers and go back to sleep and then wake again at 6.

I always get up for the 6 one. I get up and go back to bed. I do the office of dawn. I do the daily offices through compline (the last prayer). I do six of the eight. I do not do the midnight and 3 a.m. one.

Q: Why not?

A: I have a bad heart and have to be down and quiet for 10 hours so. I do compline very early _ 7 or 7:30 (p.m.) and then I lie down for my requisite time and get up at 6 and lie back down.

Fixed-hour prayer is never intended to be your whole prayer life, just like going to church is not meant to be your whole worship life. The believer also needs to provide time for private prayer. After the office of dawn I lie down and do private prayer until 7:30.

Q: Do you ever oversleep?

A: No. I set up a clock. I’ve been doing this for a long time. After 40 years, I think I would probably wake up without the alarm. Many mornings I wake up even before the clock tells me.

Q: How many people actually wake up in the middle of the night?

A: Since we put (“The Night Offices”) out, we’ve received e-mails from several people who said they’re setting their clocks. I just might do it, too, if I had the health. I’m charmed and persuaded by some of the e-mails.

These are folks who work the daytime hours, but who find it worth it to set the clock and rouse. I assume that people who buy a book called “The Night Offices” intend to use it during those times _ at least for one of the offices.

Q: How long does it take to do it? 10 minutes?

A: If it’s done corporately _ for example last evening we had friends over for dinner, there were 25 to 30 of us _ when you sing and chant it, it takes a little longer, 10 to 12, maybe 15 minutes.

When you’re doing it alone, it’s paced according to how long you stop and ponder what the reading was. On average, four to five minutes.

Q: Do you simply say it or sing it or chant it?

A: I am tone deaf and therefore I have chanted only occasionally when I’m alone. I’m no good at it.

I understand the theory and I understand that praying is one thing and the chanting adds another dimension _ a rich one. I don’t happen to be so ÃÂ?MDULÃÂ?tuned to do it.

Q: Why can’t you make up your own prayers to say at those times of the night?

A: The words of fixed-hour prayer are as fixed as is the timing of their offering. These are not self-generated. These are not intended to be your whole prayer life. There is the assumption you will have private prayers from your needs, desires and joys, but fixed-hour prayer is as fixed in its wording as it is in its time.

Q: So who came up with the words?

A: They’re pre-Christian. The form itself, I don’t know where it originated. Obviously sometime in King David’s time. He began to select which Psalms in which order. We’ve added the writings of the early church fathers. We’ve added the New Testament.

Fixed-hour prayer is still largely Psalm-based. You touch every one of the 150 Psalms at least once in six weeks.

Q: How many breviaries, or prayer books, like your own are there?

A: Hundreds, I’m sure. The basic form has been there for as long as we know. It is my training as a poet that makes this work so gratifying. They must mesh. They must form for the ear and mind a pleasant whole.

What you choose out of the church fathers to go with it is pretty much up to you. The prayers are usually appointed for specific weeks. It’s a little like playing three-tiered chess. If you move one thing, then something else falls apart so you have to go back and start over again.

Q: How is it that you’re praying the same thing as other Christians when you all have different prayer books?

A: Because your parameters out of which the material is chosen are the same. It’s going to be the first Sunday of Advent wherever you are. The prayers from Advent are established.

Thematically, you’re on the same page. That makes it sound vague, but it’s more than that. You’re within the parameters for that particular day, and how your breviary chose out of those parameters will vary. It’s more or less the same skeleton.

Q: Why is praise such an important thing? Why can’t there be requests and petitions in the Offices?

A: Praise is a great privilege. This is being allowed before the throne of God. It’s not a chore. It’s a divine work. It’s not rigorous.

Hell, in a non-geographical sense, is the inability to pray. You can never offer a prayer again. It goes back to exactly: Why did God create us? Why go to this much trouble? What are we good for? What is our purpose here?

The answer is clearly to praise God and give glory and thanks. That is our purpose. It’s the thing we do that the animals can’t. This is the privilege. It’s also what we’re here for and what eternity is going to be.

KRE/PH END BIRD

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