Good day at the Office?
As a self-critical liberal catholic, with a pervasive imposter syndrome, I’ll never forget the moment during ordination training when I dared to voice my worry that somehow I didn’t “properly engage with the Bible” as my evangelical colleagues did. One of them, a card-carrying member of St Helen’s, Bishopsgate, completely took the wind out of my sails asking:
“Do you pray the Office?”
“Of course”
“Then you’re reading more Scripture day by day than most of the rest of us!”
That was an important milestone, as I realised that the trellis on which my faith found support and structure was also my route into deeper, more reflective engagement with God’s word. Later, in curacy, Morning and Evening Prayer became the bookends which supported ministry. I loved that experience of praying daily with my TI, framing the activities of the day as we wove the stories of the community we served into the story of God’s people through the ages. I really struggled when I moved into my first parish, and found that there was no tradition of praying the Office in church, nobody to pray with me, as by now I knew that this was the framework that kept me grounded in God. Funds were very short and it felt like a huge risk when I ordered six copies of Daily Prayer – but I persisted and gradually a small group gathered, who became my go-to community for intercession for the parish week by week.
I love that Ordination has laid the Office on me as a daily expectation. It forces me to stop, whether I feel like it or not, to join with the Church across the world and across space and time too. Some days it’s easy, the prayers an expression of my own inner being “My soul magnifies the Lord”. At others, each word is hard-wrung from a weary spirit that feels dry as stone…but nonetheless, through gritted teeth “My soul magnifies the Lord”. I’m blessed to serve now in a cathedral where companions in prayer are guaranteed, but there are times too, when I dive for my phone, to pray on the train or pretend to community. How many thousands might have the app open beside me, as I pray Compline sleepily under my duvet tonight?. It’s both corporate and individual – but what matters is that in the relationship of time-bound humanity and eternal God, there are markers and structure to remind us that we travel through our days in company with the God from whom all time comes as gift. The Office keeps me checking in, whether I feel like it or not and anchors me in faith regardless of what each day brings.
—Kathryn Fleming SCP (Coventry Chapter)
