The Daily Office SSF [Hardcover]

It seems rather invidious to attempt a review of a daily office or prayer book which has been produced primarily (but by no means exclusively, as the Bishop of Gloucester makes clear in his forward to the book) for the needs of the Anglican Franciscan community. Who am I, being neither a professed Franciscan nor a liturgical expert, to offer a comment about its composition, layout and approach? That said, I'll nevertheless have a go!

I should perhaps point out that what I have to say, I merely offer as a lay person who tries to pray the daily office of the Church (i.e. the daily sequence of prayers or prayer times followed by the Church) each day. I have been using this new Franciscan office book for the past few weeks on a regular basis and also have experience of using the Church of England's Common Worship Daily Prayer (CWDP), the Roman Catholic Church's Liturgy of the Hours and a number of much older office books or breviaries, for daily prayer.

Let me begin by saying straight away that I am enjoying using this new edition of the Anglican Franciscan prayer book and am finding it enriching and helping my daily prayer in a very refreshing and satisfying way. I much prefer it to CWDP. As I become more familiar with the rhythms and daily and seasonal variations in the office book, I will consider offering a more informed review of the book. Until then, these are my initial impressions.

This new version of the Franciscan Daily Office book brings the Anglican Franciscan daily office into line with a number of the key texts of CWDP, in particular the Psalter and the Canticles (though the selection of Canticles included in this book retains some distinguishing Franciscan features and so is not identical to that contained in CWDP). The book also retains, of course, certain specifically Franciscan material (such as several Franciscan collects or prayers and The Principles of the First Order SSF, The Community Obedience of the Third Order SSF and The Principles of the Third Order SSF), as well as Franciscan additions (or changes) to the forms of Morning, Midday (i.e. CWDP's Prayer During the Day), Evening and Night Prayer used in CWDP.

Thus Morning Prayer (and I think corresponding comments could be made about Evening Prayer) for each day includes the Kyries (following the Benedictus), has a different responsory (said after the second Bible reading) to that provided in CWDP and ends with a lovely Franciscan prayer.

Midday Prayer adopts the more traditional order of psalmody (utilising the alternatives of parts of Psalm 119 and the Psalms of Ascent (121-131,133) provided at the beginning of CWDP's Prayer During the Day) and has an office hymn at the beginning (rather than CWDP's prayer). A seasonal doxology (or final verse to the hymn) variant is provided in the Temporale (or Seasons of the Church's year) section of the book. It also offers a fuller response after the reading (though the readings, unlike in CWDP, are not set out in the book (however, alternative one line readings are set out for each day)) and there are alternative collects, followed by a Franciscan concluding prayer.

Night Prayer's differences from CWDP include a different confession, the alternative of the Trisagon, the provision of Seasonal variations for the doxology of the office hymn, a different order of psalmody, different short Scripture readings ("or chapters") and the Latin text of the Salve Regina at the end of the office. The other traditional Marian antiphons (or prayers) are provided in English elsewhere in the office book.

Perhaps the most significant difference from CWDP is in the layout of the daily offices (or prayers). I much prefer this office book's approach - which will be familiar to those who have used Celebrating Common Prayer - of setting out Morning, Midday, Evening and Night Prayer in that order for each day, and of allocating among the days of the week different Seasonal (or Temporale) variations (i.e. variations for the different Seasons in the Church's year) and Sanctorale variations (i.e. variations for the type of saint being remembered that day (the "Common of the Saints")) in the canticles, Gospel canticle antiphons, responsories and collects, etc.

Thus, Friday's offices, for example, are to be used each day during Lent (including Passiontide) and also on those days when any martyr saint is being celebrated (as a Class II feast or at least with some solemnity - the office book contains a simple and straight forward guide or rubric with respect to the ranking and manner of saying the office on saints days).

I think this is much more helpful than the approach of CWDP which starts (and I appreciate that this ordering is probably there for those people who will only use this first "office" or form of prayer in the book; perhaps not as a subtle throwback to the positioning of the Office of Prime in the traditional layout of the Benedictine office?) with Prayer During the Day, for each day of the week. CWDP then follows this by Seasonal variations for Prayer During the Day and then Morning and Evening Prayer for each day of the week, followed by Seasonal Variations for that (Sanctorale variations have to be found many pages later in CWDP, in the Commons of the Saints) and finally a "common" form of Night Prayer, again followed by daily and then Seasonal variations.

Sensibly (if inevitably, rather technically), the Daily Office SSF follows the practice of the later "pocket" editions of Celebrating Common Prayer in designating the daily offices as Form 1 (Sunday), Form 2 (Monday), etc., which amongst other things, I suppose, helps avoid any instinctive confusion in praying Morning Prayer for Friday on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, etc. during Lent. For certain people, it might also be seen as providing a subtle link back to the old Latin breviaries with their ordering of the weekly Psalter amongst Feria Secunda (2) (Monday), Feria Tertia (3) (Tuesday), etc.!

As a further illustration of the book's (hardly surprising, considering that it is the Franciscan office book) catholic flavour, the office book provides two versions of the Angelus as an introductory prayer before saying the office or first prayers for the day. What I particularly like about this Anglican prayer book, is its greater openness to and inclusion of, traditional catholic forms of prayer and, as a bonus, these forms of prayer are often provided with modern language equivalents, adding to the attractions of this prayer book and avoiding any suggestion that it is simply an "anglo-catholic" version of CWDP.

Being Franciscan, it has none of CWDP's defensiveness or embarassment about the traditional (and pretty much universal) place of Mary in the Church's liturgy. That said, for those Christians who are not accustomed to including Mary in their prayers as much as others are, this prayer book remains an excellent resource that should suit them very well. The occasional Marian prayers are, of course, optional and hardly a major feature of the prayer book. As with all good office or prayer books, it is Scripture that provides the basis, and by far the greater part, of the book.

This prayer book is attractively but simply laid out, nicely produced and beautifully composed. I think that it should be a great resource for anyone (whether or not they are Franciscan) looking for a daily office or prayer book; especially a prayer book that retains a link to all that is good in the Church's traditions while also being contemporary and showing clearly what it is that attracts so many of us to the (simple) Franciscan way and to Franciscan spirituality.

One important thing to note about this new version of the Daily Office SSF is that it no longer includes a lectionary within its pages, as did its predecessor (and its Celebrating Common Prayer derivative). To use the office book while on the move, you will need to carry with you (as you do with CWDP and did with the earlier version of this office book), not only a Bible but also a Common Worship Lectionary (except for those Franciscan saints days, etc. when the office book itself provides the full "propers" for that day, i.e. the psalms and canticles to be said and citations for the day's Bible readings). This is not a major problem, however, as you can, at the beginning of each week, very easily cut out the relevant pages from the standard Common Worship lectionary and insert them in the office book.

Also, since the book contains two tables of Psalms (for use during the Seasons and during Ordinary Time) for Morning and Evening Prayer each day, if you were just to use the very short Scripture readings set out in Midday Prayer (or even Night Prayer) and to follow the allocation of Psalms given in these tables, you could treat the book like a breviary and say the offices each day without the need to carry with you any other book or resource.

Finally, the book is of the same size as CWDP and comes with six differently coloured ribbon page markers. I apologise in advance if my comparison of this book with CWDP contains some errors. I hope that I have correctly pointed out the main differences.

I strongly recommend this prayer book to anyone looking for a new form of daily prayer or looking for some enrichment of their existing daily prayer life.

This is an Office of the kind used in religious communities - a book of set daily services for use by individuals or groups. It has been put together by the Anglican Society of St Francis, a Franciscan group. It includes
- different sets of services for the main religious seasons of the year (Advent, Christmas, Lent...) and for each day of the week the rest of the year
- the text of the Psalms
- additional material for use on saints' days and other special days
- additional prayers and liturgies
- a calendar which guides you when working out which set of services to use when
- further material specific to the Society of St Francis.

Some of the most used material - eg the Benedictus - can be found at the front or the end of the book.

To use the Office, you need also to have a Lectionary - listing the Bible Readings and set psalm(s) for each day of the year - and a Bible.

There are a number of versions of the Office. Some are quite complicated, making it hard to work out what prayers etc to use on what days. I am a lay person and have found this version very well set out and easy to use - significantly easier than some others I have tried. There are ribbons to mark the different parts of the book you need to use for a service.

If you want to try a more structured approach to your daily prayer, this is a very good choice. And it is not expensive.

At long last here we have a number 1 seller of all time for the first time ever as opossed to the other version of this book which never reached to be number 1 in sales,updated to conform with Common Worship(meaning a different translation of the psalms and using more dignified and corrected language spelling much easier to understand)as opposed to the earlier version of this same book which used an older transaltion of the psalms and different spelling,so if we put the older version of this book next to the new one,this one would be the best.