8 Prayer Books for Deepening Your Prayer Practice
Why do you pray?
Why do you pray the way that you pray?
These are big questions. Really big. And we frequently take them for granted.
Practicing the daily office means we not only pray to God but that we do it with the Church. We’re praying with others. We join in solidarity with sisters and brothers around the world and throughout time.
That’s a really big deal.
In my early days as a Christian, I tended to assume that prayer was all about me—telling God what I was feeling, telling God what I wanted. My prayer practices early on didn’t shape me well to listen to God. I’ve since grown into a place where prayer is about God and prayer is about conversation. Using a prayer book has helped.
When my wife and I have a conversation, I talk and she listens. She talks and I listen. She frequently says things I’m not expecting. I learn when I listen. And prayer with God can be similar. Prayer using the daily office has shaped me to be a better listener to God.
Christians of various traditions have a multitude of resources for entering into the practice of praying the daily office. Here are a few that I’ve found to be helpful:
The Liturgy of the Hours
This is a Roman Catholic resource with roots back in the monastic tradition of St. Benedict, nearly 1,500 years old. This comes in four volumes that cover an annual cycle—Advent/Christmas, Lent/Easter, and two covering Ordinary Time.
If you were to engage in all seven offices each day, you’d go through the entire Psalter every week. Most versions of the daily office echo the structure found in the Liturgy of the Hours:
Introductory Prayers
Hymn
Psalms
Scripture Reading
Response
Gospel Canticle
Intercessory Prayers
Concluding Prayer and Blessing
Not every chapter of the Bible is included in the daily readings, but you would cover the whole story of the Bible each year. It’s a definitive resource, but it is the most complicated of these books, requiring multiple bookmarks and page-flipping.
I wouldn’t recommend starting here if you’re new to the daily office. You can find the Liturgy of Hours online at Universalis.com.
Shorter Christian Prayer
This is a pocket version of the Liturgy of the Hours. It covers a four-week cycle of the psalter—morning and evening prayer—in a single volume. If the rigor of the Liturgy of the Hours sounds absurdly impractical for you in your life situation, Shorter Christian Prayer was designed for people like you. This was my entry into the rhythm of the daily office, and I’ve used it as a guide for small group prayer in the past.
Book of Common Prayer
Shortly after the Church of England broke from the Roman Catholic Church in the days of the reformations 500 years ago, the English church produced the Book of Common Prayer. Utilizing the psalter, it provides for morning and evening prayer, Old and New Testament readings, and also includes written prayers for a variety of life situations and holy days.
Like the Catholics’ Liturgy of the Hours, the BCP is thorough but not simple to enter into if you’re new to the practice of the daily office. As a single-volume, it’s easy to carry, but also requires a lot of flipping pages. It is the prayer book for contemporary Anglicans and Episcopalians and the model for most Protestant prayer books.
In 2019, the Anglican Church of North America published an updated edition. It’s adapted into a convenient online daily resource at dailyoffice2019.com.
Celebrating Common Prayer
Some years ago, I was a part of a small community that started using Celebrating Common Prayer. It’s a seven-day cycle of morning and evening prayer that then assigns the seasons to those days when not in Ordinary Time. It takes a little bit of getting used to when getting started, but then the rhythm of it becomes second nature. It’s published by the Church of England, and so in some sense is like a simplified version of the BCP.
Something about this one just clicks with me. It’s been eight years and I still use this on a consistent basis. It’s one small book that easily fits in a bag or large pocket, and it has an accessible rhythm.
The Divine Hours
This is a three-volume set (Prayers for Springtime, Prayers for Summertime, Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime) compiled by Phyllis Tickle and published in 2001. It closely follows the BCP and does so in a sequential order, which keeps the page flipping to a minimum. For this reason, it’s a great starter book. You simply start with the Monday reading and go straight through the month.
It provides readings for morning, midday, and evening prayer with a single compline prayer at the end of each month. If you’re just beginning a practice of the daily office, I recommend The Divine Hours. While it highlights particular feast days, it is missing distinctive rhythms for the seasons of Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter. You can find it online here.
Celtic Daily Prayer
This book is a product of the Northumbria community in the far extreme northeast of England, a community steeped in the traditions of the Celtic spirituality of the 5th, 6th, and 7th centuries by characters like Patrick, Brigid, Aidan, and many others. It was first published in 1994.
Many of these prayers and readings are from the Celtic Christian tradition. It offers a pattern of morning, midday, and evening prayer each day with a monthly cycle of devotional meditations and a yearly cycle of Scripture and devotional readings. In this way it feels like a daily devotional book like My Utmost for His Highest or Jesus Calling. If you’re familiar with those, this can be a simple rhythm to enter in to.
Common Prayer for Ordinary Radicals
This is the newest book on this list. It came out in 2010 and is compiled by Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hargrove, and Enuma Okoro. It offers a 7-day cycle of evening prayer, has a unique entry of morning prayer for each day of the year, and has one midday prayer for each day. Many of the days include a historical note highlighting a peace and justice issue related to that day. While Scripture is the primary source for the prayers and readings, some of prayer refrains are sourced from modern song lyrics of a variety of artists like Leonard Cohen and the Psalters.
This is great for personal use or in group settings. There is a mobile app available that sends you notifications when it’s time for prayer, and you can also find it online.
A Guide to Prayer
This is a Methodist resource published by The Upper Room in 1983. It’s organized according to 52 sections corresponding to weeks of the year beginning with Advent. Each week contains a unique Scripture reading for each day of that week and includes devotional readings from throughout the Christian tradition, from St. Teresa to Francois Fenelon to Henri Nouwen.
Similar to The Liturgy of the Hours, each day follows a pattern of Invocation, psalm reading, Scripture reading, devotional reading, intercessory prayers, silent reflection, hymn, and Benediction. If you’re coming from the routine of a daily devotional book, this can be a useful resource.
I have a friend who’s son is in a French immersion program. This semester his son’s class has been challenged to read 100 French books. The point isn’t to understand every single word they encounter. But in the constant immersion, three months and 100 books later, their vocabulary will grow from the sheer exposure.
The point of all this to find a helpful tool that grounds you, that leads you deeper into love of neighbor and God. Experiment. Experiment with your community. Find a rhythm that guides you into the love of God.
Pray. Pray with others. The only wrong way to pray is to not pray at all.
You don’t have to “get” everything everyday. You don’t even have to “feel” it. But in giving yourself to this rhythm each day, over time, you’ll look more like Jesus than you did before.