The Divine Hours

Today is my first day working through the prayers in The Divine Hours. This is a fixed-hour prayer book by Phyllis Tickle that I just got a hold of, sourced through following links from Scot McKnight's blog. Here is a prayer that I will be praying three times each day this week:

Almightly God, give all of us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humilty; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

This is advent, the month leading up to the church's global celebration of the arrival of God as a human being - a first-century Jew who "came to visit us in great humility." Who could not love this man? One so smart and yet so humble, so caring and compassionate, so gracious and giving, so powerful and yet willing to die for those he loved. What better time to reflect on his return, when wrongs will be put right, injustice will be overturned and recompensed, wholeness and harmony will return to creation made new, and we wil share fully in his life. But for now, we prepare our hearts and minds in expectation for his arrival, that we might be experiencing it afresh daily.

Just to clear up any confusion, with the divine hours prayers are set for three times a day, plus once more just before heading off to bed. The prayers are compilations of psalms, hymns, and readings from the Common Book of Prayer and other passages from Scripture. Not having a background in liturgy, this therefore is very new to me; I hope to try it for a month and see if it is a spiritual discipline that is beneficial.