I've used it so many different ways since it came out. Originally, I was using the 30 day Psalter and praying Matins and Vespers every day - or almost every day. There were, of course, days that I missed one or the other. Then some months back I started contenting myself with Matins, dropped the 30 day psalter and used the psalms printed and indicated for each day, and prayed it all in the a.m., but that has never seemed right to me. I miss my daily Vespers, and many a morning I noticed myself simply rushing through the vast amount of material to cover and not savoring and heeding it as I ought. So I've reverted back to Matins and Vespers, but without the 30 day Psalter, and it has worked very well. I love the bracketing of the day with both chief daily prayer offices.
I divide it like this:
Matins: the Psalm printed out for the day, hymn stanza, the first reading, the writing, the collect and then the prayer for the day of the week and collect for grace.
Vespers: the second Psalm (indicated, but not printed out in the daily propers), hymn stanza, the second reading, the selection assigned from Book of Concord, the collect and my personal intercessions and collect for peace.
So how are the rest of you using your Treasury? Its versatility has been a real blessing to many!
7 comments:
Every night I read the psalm, OT and NT readings to the kids, then we sing Compline (or I do when they fall asleep). Good stuff.
Shouldn't we reserve space for Brother Maher to offer another anti-TDP screed here?
: )
Oh, I think Terry's point is mostly that it's not strictly speaking a breviary - that's much more what Brotherhood Prayer Book is about. But I can only say as one who uses it in a breviary like fashion; it works very well for that too; but it's obviously designed to be more an to be used in a variety of ways. That's the genius of the work overall. Oddly enough, the part that Terry really dislikes (the use of the civil year for most of the year) is actually one of the features I have come to appreciate the most. I'm counting down the days till we go back to it, so that the commemorations are IN the actual daily round, instead of something you have to remember and look up!
I follow Morning Prayer using the readings, a few psalms, and the prayer of the day, in the middle part of the liturgy. At lunch I do the Noon Prayer and read from the Small Catechism and a few more psalms. At night, I do Evening Prayer and re-read the daily texts and some psalms (after checking to see if Pastor Leistico has posted any insights).
Also, the last Sunday of every month I spend several hours reading straight through all the days of the month as a review of sorts.
A while ago, I gave away my office copy and only recently acquired a replacement. I did so enjoy transferring my sticky notes and pencil marks to the new one because I got to think again about the things that popped into my mind as I was reading and to see what questions I had gotten answers to or discovered through lessoning gained elsewhere.
My only problem is that I still do not understand the Christian calendar and so was reading the wrong readings long into the Lent/Easter season. Of course, that meant that I just had the opportunity to ponder more of the Living Word when I set about catching up.
Still, in church (between bulletin and hymnal) and in the Treasury and in the hymnal itself and in the collect supplement, I could dearly wish there were someone always beside me pointing a helpful finger, saying, "Read here, Myrtle."
I do not use TDP as fully as I ought.
I have one copy that I keep in my church office. First thing that I do when I get to the office is make the coffee. Then, I grab my TDP, turn on some lights in the sanctuary, and read the assigned portion for the day (Psalm, OT, NT, Writing, Prayers) within the Matins service.
On days when I am not in the office, I skip those days and tell myself that I will get that day next year.
It's been a wonderful book.
Matins each morning in the study, with both readings. I use the 30-day Psalter but over 60 days. Sometimes it's one month of mornings, one month of evenings. Sometimes I go through them in order.
(Mind you, I think the LW chants are very weak, as are the attempts at long chants in LSB/TDP, so I have re-pointed them according to the chant scheme of St. Dunstan's Plainsong Psalter.)
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