Respect and awe

I’ve heard a good bit of comment during the pandemic about how the daily office has become part of the fabric of many parishes. Across the country parishes arranged for the Office to be said using Zoom or live streaming. Since early 2020 I would shift about from doing Morning Prayer on my own (with the whole communion of saints) to joining the live stream Office of Atonement, Chicago or St. Mary’s Hamilton Village where I was ordained a deacon in 1970. Members of the Order of the Ascension are obliged by Rule to say the Office each day, and if in charge of a parish, to offer a public Office. The obligation protects me from basing my spiritual life on my inconstant, capricious, and vacillating feelings and opinions.

Now most days, I say Morning Prayer on Zoom with Sister Michelle, OA. After that I walk to Uptown Expresso, read the news with a mug of coffee, walk a bit, do some grocery shopping, and return home to write or read. The heartbeat of the Office grounds me in respect and awe.

I picked up the phrase, “respect and awe” from Abbott Andrew of St. Gregory’s Abbey reflection in their Fall newsletter. He writes of “Benedict’s realism” in the face of “the past year and a half (having been) traumatic and disorienting in many ways.” He says this in a section on the Office.

The Divine Office immerses us in the Christian story as active participants. The Psalms, which are the backbone of the Divine Office, are profoundly realistic about human experience between humans and between humans and God. That is, the Psalms lead us to expressions of joy, sorrow, even rage, emotions we feel all the time as we make our way through life. The Office is done communally, which means we also have to work with the strengths and weaknesses of ourselves and others in our varying abilities to sing and recite the office well. We are made conscious of the people around us and of the people we are praying for. We are also made aware of God. Fundamentally, we sense God truly through respect and awe, the attitude with which Benedict would have us listen to the Gospel as it is read. Moreover, the office has the ability to ground us emotionally, even when its content takes us into the depths of pain. That is to say, the Divine Office can be a powerful resource for helping us live with traumatic situations such as the pandemic.  A PDF of the Abbey Letter

rag+