Scattered Thoughts on the Treasury

Now that I have the Treasury of Daily Prayer in hand, I must confess to being even more impressed than I was in looking through the PDF files CPH shared. The book is MASSIVE - it couldn't be anything else, since it included so many gems and treasures.

Among the hidden gems, the one that I've been most blessed by is found tucked away on page 1441. It's a pre-communion prayer of St. John Chrysostom:

Know, O Lord my God, I am unworthy that You should enter beneath the roof of the temple of my soul, because it is all empty and dead. There is in me no worthy place where You may lay Your head....

Gems such as this are literally strewn across the pages of the book.

My suggestion to those who will be using the TDP as a daily Breviary for Matins and Vespers is to turn to the Psalter on pages 1323-1423 and, using the Schedule for Reading the Psalms Over Thirty Days (pp. 1436, 1437), mark at the head of each set of Psalms the day and the time (m for morning; e for evening). This will eliminate the need to refer to the Psalm chart. Thus, at Psalm 1, write: 1-M and at Psalm 6 write: 1-E, and so on.

Don't miss the fine prayers that are provided for each day of the week (pp. 1306-1309). These are fitting additions to the Matins or Vespers.

It is appropriate to append the reading about a given day's Commemoration, Feast or Festival to the end of Matins, and perhaps to include the Prayer of the Day following the announcement of what is being commemorated.

Note that Compline is printed exactly as in the hymnal, therefore you need to know that the traditional Compline Psalms are 4, 91, and 134. The traditional Compline hymn is "Before the Ending of the Day" LSB 889. You might want to copy it and keep it with Compline or better yet, just memorize it.

The simplest way to use the Treasury is to confine one's self to the Psalmody and readings provided for each day. That's what I suspect the majority of our laity will do, but it certainly can be used for a more complete office. The introductions provide invaluable help in this regard. I particularly appreciated these words on page 20:

"The Daily Office is not an isolated, individual endeavor. Instead, it is the way an individual participates in the prayer life of the community, the Church. Thus, one does not need to feel a burden to participate in a particular office every day or feel guilty because a time of prayer was missed. Rather, when you miss a time you typically set aside for prayer, be conscious that the prayer goes on as the people of God throughout the world call on their dear Father."

With the vast resources of this work, how easily the Daily Office could again come to be sung and prayed in our Churches (at least Matins and Vespers) - ideally daily but certainly at least during the great Penitential Seasons. As the Eucharist has been restored to its rightful place among us as the Chief Service each Lord's Day, the prayer offices have in many places become unfamiliar to our people. Time to bring them back and show that rather than replacing the Eucharist, they lead toward it and accompany us after receiving it!

More later, I'm sure. But what a gift the good folks at CPH have given us this time, people loved by God! What a gift!