Back from the dead - not really!

It's been a while since I've blogged with a birthday past ( I am now 45 and we went to see Skyfall to celebrate - good film + Moneypenny returns!).  I am slightly off work today due to a wisdom tooth extraction, but the pain has faded.  One of the slight disadvantages of living in da country is that there are less opportunities  to follow the traditional observances of All Saints/Souls.  We got to the All Saints Mass but missed the All Souls in the evening this year.

This why the Office matters.  It allows the individual to maintain their devotional life even where local circumstances mitigate against communal celebrations.  I've rediscovered the joys of using the office on the train in the last few months.  And the usefulness of the rosary when tired after work.  Prayer is always a possibility even in a busy life.

Praying the Day

One of the funny things about blogging is that sometimes when there's a lot on, your creative muse goes AWOL.  Friday for example.  it was a praying day. Woke up early and joined the Rector for mattins.  I recall how utterly dispiriting it was to try to maintain a daily office in Church on your own, so decided to try to be a wee bit supportive.  I'd forgotten how  insipid the Scottish 1990 Office is and I'm glad we are more or less Franciscan in Da Hoose!  Which we then used after breakfast for the guests in the House.  No clash of readings - ye Rector uses the SEC Office one's and we use the Missal for the day.  In a way, one was the Prayer of the Church, the other the Prayer of the Community.  Or the Prayer of the Wider Community and the Prayer of the Gathered Church if you like.

Then I used the Rosary on the train to Falkirk to commend an ex-Parishioner to God as I headed to her funeral.  I don't often pray the actual mysteries, but I seem to keep a rosary in my jacket pocket.  often I just fiddle with a bead or 2 during the day.  It's just a reminder that the Incarnate One is with us in the place where we are.  I know others use a holding Cross but I find the beads a little less obtrusive.

Jinty's funeral was a good and very appropriate send off and so crowded that I ended up standing behind the altar!  Just like old times apart there being another 20 folk in the sanctuary.  (There were between 250 and 300 in a 150 seat Church!) I went back simply because Jinty played a vital role in rescuing me when I went boing.  She was the one who saved me from a night in the cells at the crash point (aka my last drunk) on Friday 13th March 2009.  We had also shared a 2 week trip to Uganda back in 2006.  So part of me turned up at a service in Falkirk to say "Thanks. And this is what I've done with my life since then.  Sober, useful job and engaged!".  I think I could hear a "Good boy!  Well done!" over the ether from her.  I occasionally got that from her when she was Vestry Secretary!

After that and the socialising, I crashed back into Church for the Evening Office form the Prayer Book.  Old sonorous familiar words have their place and value in prayer along side the contemporary and your own words.  And then the day ended with Franciscan Compline with the community.  Praying through the days is something I try to do (often rather fitfully).  The best I can do often is Sir Jacob Astley's Prayer before the Battle of Edgehill: "O Lord, thou knowest how busy I must be this day: if I forget thee,do not thou forget me".  Which is quite a handy wee prayer!

Saying your prayers.

I've got back recently into the habit of saying my daily office in Church. But, following a blog chat with the Autocephalous Patriarch of Dumbarton (aka Fr Kenny), I've reverted to the 1929 Prayer Book, rather than the 1990 or even the Roman Office. And I'm getting something unexpected (but good) from the old book. When praying the office alone, I always feel as if I'm talking to a void. But with 1929, the sheer beauty and rolling cadences of the Psalms as translated by Coverdale simply transport me. I am enjoying spending time praying the office. I suppose it's a case of "pray as you can and not as you can't" and don't worry if it ain't PC or modern. It's really between you and God, so get on with it and enjoy. And the thanksgiving for favourable weather got used this morning as it's nice and sunny! Plus, I've added a wee recital of the Rosary onto the office each evening for the duration of the Lambeth Conference. They need the prayers!

BTW I'd be grateful, if you could pray for my cousin's wife Margo, who is very ill with terminal cancer. She really is in a dreadful state just now.