Practices From the Inside Out: Morning and Evening Prayer

Morning and Evening Prayer

I follow the practices of morning and evening prayer as a lay oblate at a Benedictine monastery.

They were not practices I was following before I started discerning my relationship to the hermitage. I had done them occasionally, particularly when visiting other communities.

They were not practices which I found objectionable. When I tried to begin practicing them I often found I forgot about them after a day or two. I felt I probably should follow them, but nothing about them really attracted me.

Exploring whether the hermitage and I were a good fit included following a set of practices. Those practices included morning and evening prayer.

Since I live in the same time zone as the hermitage, I decided to pray at the same times the monks were praying. As I began morning prayer on my first day, I felt a particularly strong connection to the monastic community. I realized we were following the same structure of prayer at the same time, just as we would if I were there physically.

As I prayed, I realized my new practice was about more than praying with the monks at the hermitage. I began to appreciate there were people all around the world who had prayed or would pray the same ways that day. It was always time for morning prayer and evening prayer somewhere in the world.

I also began to recognize our pattern of prayer not only wrapped around the world, but stretched back and forward in time. People have been practicing morning and evening prayer for hundreds of years. and will be for many more.

These practices are not about me sitting and praying on my own. They are a network which circles the earth and extends into the past and the future.

Practices of Morning and Evening Prayer

People tell me their own reasons for not practicing morning and evening prayer.

Some of us believe we cannot find enough time in our busy schedules to pray twice each day. Others of us feel the structures of the prayers are too complicated, too formal, or too confusing.

We can get intimidated by our own expectations about how and when we should pray. Many of us want to pray the right way at the right time for the right reasons. If we feel overwhelmed or confused or bored we assume we must be doing something wrong.

It is as though we do not want to make any prayer mistakes, so we avoid praying.

There are many ways to practice morning and evening prayer. The only real significant mistake we can make is not praying.

Praying is a practice we follow and develop. Our expectations of what prayer is about are obstacles which get in the way of praying.

It is not healthy or realistic for us to expect ourselves to know how to pray before we have started practicing. We cannot know how to play the piano or how to play basketball before we begin to practice.

Some of us are intimidated because we believe we need to use particular words when we pray. We believe God would be upset to hear us swear, for example, as if we need to protect God from ourselves.

If you feel you do not know how to put your prayers into words, then pray without words. Prayer is practicing being open to God. Even when we are disappointed or frustrated or angry or skeptical with God, we can practice praying.

The most significant thing about practicing prayer is being present. We do not need to impress God.

Both Morning and Evening Prayer?

Some of us live our lives under a lot of pressure. We have deadlines and responsibilities and constant demands on our time.

I tend to believe anyone who lives with that kind of pressure needs to pray more than the rest of us, not less. When we develop a practice of morning and evening prayer, though, we need to start somewhere.

There are people who tell me they have no free time to invest in praying. I have helped them try to find time. There are people I have suggested take five minutes in their car when they arrive at work in the morning and at home in the evening.

Developing a practice, any practice, is about growing and becoming stronger. We need to start somewhere and allow our practice to help us grow into something new.

It is not about determining the absolute minimum amount of time we can spend praying. We are practicing to plant seeds which will grow, not to finish planting as quickly as we can.

I believe both morning and evening prayer are significant and helpful to us. Spend as much time as you will allow yourself to spend.

Where Will Morning and Evening Prayer Take Us?

I cannot promise particular results from a practice of morning and evening prayer.

Praying will not necessarily give us deep spiritual insights or help us feel comfort within ourselves. We will probably not receive answers to particular questions we have or experience new levels of accepting ourselves.

It does not work like a vending machine or an online website where we order what we want. Prayer is a relationship which allows us to explore spiritual life within ourselves and in the world around us.

Praying often does not answer our questions, but helps us understand and appreciate our questions in new ways. We spend time listening, open to God’s presence and action in our lives.

As we practice morning and evening prayer we begin to see it is more than we thought it was when we started. We practice being open and becoming who we are intended to be.

In the morning and in the evening I practice praying with the monks at the hermitage. We pray together even when we are apart.

When will we practice morning and evening prayer today?

How will our practice of morning and evening prayer shape us this week?

[Image by Pedro Nuno Caetano]

Greg Richardson is a spiritual director in Southern California. He has served as an assistant district attorney, an associate university professor, and is a lay Oblate with New Camaldoli Hermitage near Big Sur, California. Greg’s website is StrategicMonk.com and his email address is [email protected].