When the bell over St. Paul's Chapel rings at 8:25am on
weekdays, it is more than a signal to those making their way to Morning Prayer:
it is also reminding the resident animals and birds to praise their Maker; it
is reminding the Rouge River of its vocation to find the sea; it is reminding
the towering stone and watchful statues of their ancient and persistent
purpose.
Aren't those things obvious? Why bother with bell-ringing
and psalm-saying? Why put so much energy into a church service where no one
even passes a collection plate?
Without the bells and the psalms the world would go on,
but in a stunted, starved version of itself. There is something the landscape
is always trying to say, but lacks the words. The traditional shapes and rhythms
of the Daily Office seek to supply that language and speak those words, using
symbolic forms developed through centuries of monastic
practice as symbolic commentary to the tidal, the seasonal, and the
catastrophic life that transpires all around us. Each morning in St. Paul’s
Chapel our liturgical phrases and
movements are joined to those uttered by the robins and crows, by variant
breezes, by passing traffic on Lone Pine Road, and by the people who have
prayed, studied, loved, and been buried on this site. The Daily Office
translates this inchoate sound into worship, into words beyond concepts, values
beyond worth, wisdom beyond explanation.
The Latin word
officium means “duty”, “service”, or “job”. Hence, we
go to the “office” to “work.” The “Daily Offices” of Morning and Evening Prayer
constitute, therefore, the “work of
worshipping God”, and have the connotation of a disciplined, intentional
effort, as opposed to a spontaneous or occasional outburst of some kind. It should come as no surprise, therefore, to learn
that the form and practice of the Daily Office had its origins in the monastic
movement, wherein, from the 4th Century onward, groups of men and
women vowed to maintain lives completely focused upon God. Monastic communities sought to sanctify the natural
rhythms of each day with chanted psalms, short readings from scripture, and
prayers. Over time, parish churches, cathedrals, and school chapels adapted the
monastic pattern to their own circumstances, with clergy and lay people coming
together to perform offices of prayer on behalf of neighbors and friends whose officium in the world made their physical presence at
church difficult .
