I mentioned yesterday some spiritual themes from John’s gospel. A superb survey of this and the development of Mysticism generally is Thomas Merton’s “An Introduction to Christian Mysticism”. Be warned, though, that it is not a book but rather lecture notes for course run for novice monks. It means that it is a bit condensed to read, but the material is very good indeed.

You can read an excerpt here. The book is published by Cistercian Publications.

There is a list of Anglican Religious Orders and you’ll have scroll down to the bottom to find the ones in the UK (unless you fancy a few days in the Solomon Islands!). Most of these houses have guest accommodation.

A map of (Catholic) Benedictine houses in this country can be found here and a more useful list is here.

A more general list of Retreat Centres (which are mainly not part of a monastic foundation) can be found at the Retreat Association website.

I go to Burford Priory, but they are in the process of moving at the moment as you’ll see from the website! If you’re interested in what the old place looked like, a load of photos can be found in two of my Flickr sets: Buildings and Grounds.

The one book I would recommend on contemplative prayer is Into the Silent Land by Martin Laird. It is short, practical and superb. Well worth a read.

I’m old-fashioned enough to appreciate pages, bookmarks, and technology which doesn’t rely on electricity and a web connection! So here are some printed office books (often called breviaries).

The Divine Office
The Divine Office (or Liturgy of the Hours) is the official prayerbook of the Roman Catholic church. It is a monster, weighing in at 3 volumes but it does contain the Office of Readings (including the readings themselves) as well as Morning, Midday, Evening and Night Prayer. The 3 volumes are:

Fortunately, there are shorter versions available:
Daily Prayer (Morning, Evening & Night Prayer as well as Office of Readings for major festivals)
Morning & Evening Prayer (includes Night Prayer)
Shorter Morning and Evening Prayer (omits special services for saints days – a very handy book and a good starting point).

Daily Prayer
Common Worship: Daily Prayer is from the Church of England and is used in many parishes. It is in contemporary English and contains Morning Prayer, Prayer During the Day, Evening Prayer and Night Prayer.

For those traditionalists among you, the Book of Common Prayer is still widely used and is – of course – the official prayer book of the C of E.

Benedictine Daily Prayer
For those who wish for a more monastic flavour, as well as more short services for the day there is a recent breviary published by an American monastery. It contains a rich mixture of the services, hymns and psalms and represents something that will last. It might be daunting at first, but well worth the investment in time.
The Monastic Diurnal
Leatherbound and produced by St Michael’s Abbey in Farnborough, this is a:

“republication of the 1963 edition of the Benedictine hours of Prime, Lauds, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline, in Latin and English in parallel columns for all the feasts and seasons in the traditional Benedictine calendar, with an updated table of movable feasts and a Benedictus/Magnificat card. The Latin text is the traditional Vulgate psalter. Ideal for novices, monks and nuns when travelling, Benedictine oblates, guests at monasteries, and all who wish to draw upon the riches of the ancient and traditional Benedictine office. Printed in black and red throughout and bound in real Moroccan leather with a flexible cover, gilt edges and six marker ribbons, this is a truly beautiful book.”

Celtic Daily Prayer
This is produced by the Northumbria Community and has caught on amongst Baptist Ministers! From their website:

“This 838 page book is ‘the heartbeat’ of the Northumbria Community, containing:

• the Daily Office (Morning, Midday and Evening Prayer)
• a Compline for each day of the week
• a Meditation for each day of the month
• 2 years of Daily Readings and Meditations
• liturgies and prayers for a wide range of personal circumstances, times of life and times of year
• calendar and resources for Saints’ Days

This book is used not only by Companions and Friends in the Community but many others, all round the world, have found it a very helpful regular or occasional daily companion.”

Celebrating Daily Prayer
This is an Anglican Fransiscan book which was very influential in the forming of the C of E Daily Prayer book. From Amazon:
“Whilst retaining all the essential features of the full office book, Celebrating Daily Prayer condenses Common Worship Daily Prayer into a user-friendly, portable format, ideal for personal use. The main features of Celebrating Daily Prayer are the integration of the Psalms and Collects into the office setting and the inclusion of a short reading for each day, making this edition particularly suitable for personal prayer”.

What do I use?
A few people asked what I use for daily prayer. I don’t really use one book, but more of a mixture. For the Office of Readings I use the Catholic Divine Office. For Morning, Evening and Night Prayer I use the Anglican Daily Prayer (Morning Prayer) and the Book of Common Prayer (Evening Prayer and Night Prayer). For the ‘day hours’ I use the Monastic Duirnal.

What would I recommend?
If you are a member of a denomination which produces a Daily Prayer resource (ie Catholic or Anglican) I would suggest you use that. It is a way of uniting you to others in your tradition and is designed to supplement the Sunday Services.

If you aren’t, then I would go for Shorter Morning and Evening Prayer as it is pretty straightforward to use, cheap and pocket-sized.

Following questions, conversations and suggestions here’s a short series of follow-ups from the retreat.

Online Offices
A version of the Catholic Office (which is similar to that used at Worth) can be found at universalis.com. There are links to each of the four services on the site towards the top of the page. This is not an official site, but it is close to the wording of the office.

The Church of England publishes its daily services online here. If you want to go directly to the services today, you can use the links below:

Book of Common Prayer (traditional language)

Common Worship (contemporary language)

Some other online offices have been provided by:

The ‘emergent’ office I couldn’t remember is the Missio Dei Breviary.

One interesting way to trace the development of doctrine, and get a feel for an era, is to look at its music. BBC Four has produced a series on Sacred Music which is well worth a watch, and it’s on the iPlayer.  The first is here and click on the More Sacred Music tab to see the rest.

The books I mentioned yesterday on Teresa/John of the Cross were:

Merton, Thomas (1976) Ascent to Truth (Continuum)
Williams, Rowan (2003) Teresa of Avila (Continuum)

For more on Roman attitudes towards Christians try the superb:
Wilkin, Robert L (2003) The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (Yale)

On the early church generally, Wilken has written the equally good: The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God which was published by Yale in 2005.

It seems to me that Wordle is one of the net tools which could be useful in worship. If you were to use the image above for meditation you would become suffused with the Statement of Chalcedon on the definition of Christ.