Remember the post I made about liturgical typography? It still gets plenty of readers. Even though it was a bit of a rant, it did spur me on to produce quite a lot of wee bookies for morning prayer, to make it easier for those coming for the Daily Office at 0930.

It is a quiet service. Psalms, readings, silence. Keeping some kind of rhythm in prayer is one of the gifts that the church offers people which is like a best kept secret. We make it too hard for people a lot of the time, I fear. Too many page turns and too many things to look up. No wonder people turn to the Buddhists!

I’ve learned a bit from the meditation practices of the East, but I still find that praying a rhythm of words is what I want to come back to as the backbone of a spiritual life.

Increasingly, I think, churches are going to be successful if they teach people basic spirituality. By that I mean giving people the tools to form a spiritual life that is doable.

In that spirit, I wonder whether anyone might like a copy of the daily office that we will be praying through Advent. Here is is in pdf form. You can print it out yourself or steal one from church if you must.

If you spot any mistakes, do let me know so that it can be corrected.

At St Mary’s, we try to keep the rhythm of the psalms by waiting for a wee pause for breath at the star in the middle of the verses.

That wee pause for breath is what Advent is all about, after all.