Merry Christmas!
Today, with help from Julia Huttar Bailey, rector at Trinity in the Woods Episcopal Church in Farmington Hills, Michigan, we observe Christmas with the prayer for Christmas Day from The Divine Hours, complied by Phyllis Tickle (of blessed memory). Phyllis popularized the prayers at set intervals through the day that monks and nuns have practiced for centuries, a practice shared by our Jewish and Muslim siblings—a common practice in all the Abrahamic Faiths. This form of prayer is sometimes called the Daily Offices, or The Divine Hours. We’re not using our own words with these prayers—instead we are dipping our canoe into the river of prayer that goes back to Abraham, and probably even earlier.
And, btw, we are taking a Christmas break from producing these daily prayer podcasts—we’ll back with our daily prayer emails and podcasts on Thursday, January 7, 2021.