Flexibility and stability: virtues of the Cranmerian Daily Office

In reflecting on the strengths of the Cranmerian daily office, we might consider how it combines flexibility with stability.  Flexibility is inherent to Cranmer's Morning and Evening Prayer because of his gathering of the main pre-Reformation offices - Matins, Lauds, Prime, Vespers, Compline - into two offices, a scheme more suitable for parochial clergy and for laity.  Prayer Book Morning Prayer combines the old Matins as an office of readings, Lauds as morning praise and prayer, Prime as the commending of the new day to God. Prayer Evening Prayer also retains the character of an office of readings (reflecting Cranmer's Reformed concern for the reading of Scripture, while also an echo of pre-Reformation Matins being a night-time office), while combining Vespers as evening praise and prayer, and Compline as prayer at day's end.  

Thus Prayer Book Mattins includes Te Deum from the old Matins and Benedictus from Lauds.  The Creed was a feature of Prime, the Lord's Prayer from Lauds.  The second collect at Mattins was derived from Lauds, the third collect was taken from Prime.  Prayer Book Evensong likewise took the Magnificat from Vespers and the Nunc Dimittis from Compline, with the second collect being from Vespers and the third from Compline.  

One of the advantages of this gathering up of the pre-Reformation offices is to ensure that Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer can function in a variety of ways.  To begin with, the attention to Scripture which marked the old Matins is a feature of both Mattins and Evensong in the Cranmerian office.  Morning and evening, serious attention to Holy Scripture characterises the Cranmerian office.  Twice a day, we are rooted in the Scriptures of the Old and New Covenants.  Whether it is Mattins said quietly alone in the study or Choral Evensong in the cathedral, the old monastic vocation of attending to Scripture can be lived out by clergy and laity.  

Alongside its character as an office of readings, Mattins prayed alone at 6:30am on Thursday morning may feel more like Prime's prayerful commendation of the day ahead ("who hast safely brought us to the beginning of this day").  11am Choral Mattins with sermon in the parish or cathedral on a Sunday, however, will have more of a feeling of the praise of Lauds, combined with the teaching nature of an office of readings.  Likewise, Choral Evensong at 3:30pm on a Sunday will be more like the praise and prayer of Vespers, while Evensong prayed alone at 6:30pm as darkness falls on an October day will feel like Compline's gathering up of the day in prayer and praise.  The readings at Sunday Choral Evensong will have a sense of enabling serious attention to Scripture on the Lord's Day.  At 6:30pm on an October week day, they will have a sense of anchoring us in Scripture as another working day passes.  

This flexibility is a profound strength of the Cranmerian daily office, enabling the same office to be prayed in differing and contrasting contexts, offering a not insignificant expression of unity and communion. What is more, the fact that the same offices of Morning and Evening Prayer can be used in very diverse circumstances is part of what Cranmer described as the "commodious" nature of these offices, ensuring that the praying of the office is not "so hard and intricate a matter".

This leads to consideration of the stability of the Cranmerian office.  There are no "manifold changings of the service", whether because of the time of day or the season of the liturgical year.  Due to the "plainness of the order", Mattins has the same words and structure, whether in the study or the cathedral; Evensong has the same words and structure, whether it is 3:30pm on Trinity Sunday or 6:30pm on the Thursday of the XVIIth week after Trinity.  

How should we consider such "plainness"? A recent article by commentator Mary Harrington superbly explores the significance and value of repetition and the ordinary:

As the pioneering biosemioticist Wendy Wheeler puts it in Information and Meaning, repetition and pattern are central to communication throughout the organic and even the inorganic world ... For individuals, meaning is to be found less in peak experiences, one-offs, the exceptional or abstract; it hides in the repetitive, the everyday, and the relational ... meaning, as Wheeler emphasizes, "is made up of pattern, repetition, the expected" ...  defense of ordinary-ness, pattern and repetition does not imply turning back the clock ... But it’s to defend pattern, repetition, and ordinariness as valuable in their own right,

It is the very repetitive nature of the Cranmerian daily office, its very "plainness", which can build meaning, establishing a daily pattern which grounds us in scripture and psalm, praise and prayer: which is another way of saying that it grounds us in God.  Setting aside repetition, by contrast, can encourage what Harrington terms a "transactional logic", in which we "replace meaning with information": this is more likely to be fleeting and transitory, less likely to encourage depth and meaning over the longer term. 

Repetition and pattern shape meaning.  The daily repetition of Te Deum and Magnificat, Creed and Lord's Prayer, Gloria Patri and Grace.  The monthly praying of the Psalter.  The yearly reading of the whole of Scripture, day by day marinating soul, heart, and mind in law and prophets, gospels and epistles.  Such repetition and pattern draws us to perceive, experience, and taste the meaning of life in God.  As Harrington notes, "meanings are fundamentally ... pattern-based". 

This also points to the relationship between stability and flexibility: stability enables flexibility.  Repetition and pattern ensure that "the rules be few and easy", thus giving to the Orders for Morning and Evening Prayer a robust 'all-terrain' nature: Mattins at 6:30am or 11am; Evensong in the study or in the cathedral.  An order with more 'choice' and less repetition would require more physical and mental preparation, more concern with 'what happens next', more uncertainty about what should happen and when.  It could lead to the construction of entirely different rites for different contexts.  And, of course, it would necessitate a more complex volume of resources rather than one Common Prayer book.

All of which suggests the enduring value of the Cranmerian wisdom which shaped the Orders for Morning and Evening Prayer Daily Throughout the Year.  That the Cranmerian daily office can fit into early 21st century life, and offer a pattern and rhythm of daily prayer in a radically different cultural, social, and economic context to that in which it first emerged, is testimony to the stability and flexibility which define Prayer Book Mattins and Evensong.