The Night Offices: Prayers for the Hours from Sunset to Sunrise

Phyllis Tickle

Nov 2006 · Oxford University Press

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Phyllis Tickle's inspirational trilogy The Divine HoursTM was the first major literary and liturgical reworking of the sixth-century Benedictine Rule of fixed-hour prayer--an age-old discipline of saying prayers at certain times of the day. This highly regarded trilogy has become one of America's best-loved and most frequently consulted manuals for observing this ancient form of Christian worship. Now, in The Night Offices, Tickle offers the perfect complement to The Divine HoursTM, bringing together prayers, psalms, hymn texts, religious poetry and other readings not included in the original trilogy, covering the offices for the hours from late evening (Compline) to early morning (Prime). Fans of the Divine HoursTM will recognize Tickle's simple, elegant format, her use of a modern calendar rather than a liturgical one, and the single ribbon in the binding, to track one's progress through the year. As in the trilogy, Tickle makes primary use of the Book of Common Prayer and the writings of the Church Fathers, and she draws all the scriptural readings from the Revised Standard Version. The book includes a set of Matins, Lauds, and Prime specific to each day of the week and varied only by month. Thus, the Monday reading for January would be used every Monday in January, but Monday in February would have new offices for it. The cumulative total, being 84 Matins, 84 Lauds, and 84 Prime (252 offices), fits neatly into a single, nightstand edition, a small, compact book that can be comfortably held in the hand. Easy to use, poetically rich, with a superb sampling of devotional works, The Night Offices will be welcomed by a broad readership, Christian and non-Christian alike.

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Phyllis Tickle, founding editor of the Religion Department at Publishers Weekly, is a highly respected authority on religion in America, frequently quoted in publications such as USA Today, Christian Science Monitor, and The New York Times as well as on PBS and NPR. She is the author of the best-selling "Stories from The Farm in Lucy" trilogy, including What the Land Already Knows, Wisdom in the Waiting, and The Graces We Remember. She lives in Millington, Tennessee.