Seven times a day I have praised you (Ps. 118:164)
Adopt a regular liturgical prayer schedule and keep the appointments.
Why? Here is a partial list of reasons:
You are reminded several times a day that your immediate desires are not as central as they seem.
You are brought into contact with the Word frequently
In community, you are reminded that we go to God as a community, not as individuals.
The Bible says to.
Liturgical prayer is clearly central to St. Benedict. He call it Opus Dei—the Work of God. The current author is ignorant of what that kind of prayer meant in his day, but we do know that a thousand years later, St. Teresa of Avila had to struggle to get her monks to appreciate any other sort of prayer. She advocated “mental” rather than vocal prayer. This turn toward silence is, in our experience, beneficial. It may help to hear St. Augustine’s take on prayer: So that we might obtain this life of happiness, he who is true life itself taught us to pray, not in many words as though speaking longer could gain us a hearing. After all, we pray to one who, as the Lord himself tells us, knows what we need before we ask for it.
Why he should ask us to pray, when he knows what we need before we ask him, may perplex us if we do not realise that our Lord and God does not want to know what we want (for he cannot fail to know it), but wants us rather to exercise our desire through our prayers, so that we may be able to receive what he is preparing to give us. His gift is very great indeed, but our capacity is too small and limited to receive it. That is why we are told: Enlarge your desires, do not bear the yoke with unbelievers.
The deeper our faith, the stronger our hope, the greater our desire, the larger will be our capacity to receive that gift, which is very great indeed. No eye has seen it; it has no colour. No ear has heard it; it has no sound. It has not entered man’s heart; man’s heart must enter into it.
In this faith, hope and love we pray always with unwearied desire. However, at set times and seasons we also pray to God in words, so that by these signs we may instruct ourselves and mark the progress we have made in our desire, and spur ourselves on to deepen it. The more fervent the desire, the more worthy will be its fruit. When the Apostle tells us: Pray without ceasing, he means this: Desire unceasingly that life of happiness which is nothing if not eternal, and ask it of him who alone is able to give it.1
Praying the liturgy, therefore, enlarges our capacity for receiving the gift of Presence.
Much of these chapters will be useful for understanding St. Benedict’s point of view, and if you are part of a community that can pray together, you may want to see what they hold that would work for your group.
St. Augustine, from a letter used in the Office of Readings on Sept. 1
