Christian monasticism has always grounded its life and its days in prayer. Its whole day, from the lighting of lamps in the evening, through to bed time, to the middle of the night, to waking, to morning and to noon, was punctuated by prayer services. Today I’d like to look at a prayer that is a consistent feature of many of these services, known as the Prayer of the Hours:
Who you are in every season and every hour, in Heaven and on earth, worshipped and glorified,
O Christ God; long-suffering, merciful and compassionate;
Who love the just and show mercy upon the sinner;
Who call all to salvation through the promise of blessings to come.
O Lord, in this hour receive our supplications,
and direct our lives according to Your commandments:
Sanctify our souls. Purify our bodies.
Correct our minds. Cleanse our thoughts.
And deliver us from all tribulations, evil, and distress.
Surround us with Your holy angels;
That, guided and guarded by them, we may attain to the unity of the faith,
and unto the knowledge of Your unapproachable glory.
For You are blessed unto ages of ages.
Amen.
I enjoy how the prayer refers to its use throughout the prayers of the hours: God is worthy of praise at every hour and we ask God to receive our prayers at every hour. In every season, at every hour, within every circumstance, the appropriate response is prayer. Once again grounding our prayer in God’s character as revealed in Jesus of Nazareth — “long-suffering, merciful, compassionate,” loving, forgiving, and beckoning humanity to him — the prayer offers up a litany of personal requests:
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- holiness: being set apart for God and God’s ways
- purity: being uncompromisingly devoted to following Christ’s example (while also understanding that there is no room in Christian faith for self-righteousness or purity culture)
- clear thinking
- clean thoughts
- deliverance from troubles, evil, and suffering.
- protection
- guidance
- unity within the community of faith
- knowledge of God.
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These are pretty great things to desire and seek from God. And again, they’re evergreen and so perfect for this prayer that monastics return to hour after hour, day after day, season after season, year after year.
While praying the whole cycle of daily prayers is beyond most of us outside the monastery (I say that as someone who tried many times!), I think it’s still a helpful thing to have a prayer to return to consistently throughout the day. For example, I’ve had good luck at various times over the past decade returning to the “Hinneni’ prayer, which is to simply ground oneself before God by saying “Hinneni,” or in translation, “Here I am!”
Irrespective of the words we pray, it remains that our faith is not something that happens for an hour on a Sunday morning, but is to permeate our whole lives, in every season and in every hour. And having words to help articulate that, can be a very beautiful and powerful thing.
Who you are in every season and every hour, in Heaven and on earth, worshipped and glorified,
O Christ God; long-suffering, merciful and compassionate;
Who love the just and show mercy upon the sinner;
Who call all to salvation through the promise of blessings to come.
O Lord, in this hour receive our supplications,
and direct our lives according to Your commandments:
Sanctify our souls. Purify our bodies.
Correct our minds. Cleanse our thoughts.
And deliver us from all tribulations, evil, and distress.
Surround us with Your holy angels;
That, guided and guarded by them, we may attain to the unity of the faith,
and unto the knowledge of Your unapproachable glory.
For You are blessed unto ages of ages.
Amen.
Matthew Root 