Day Three - Early Morning Silence

As an adult I have always been an early riser. It is a rare occasion for me to lie in. This has been a source of frustration over the years.

Since becoming a parish priest, waking early is something I have received as a gift. The space before the world wakes is largely silent and dark - filled with the Other. It is numinous. A thin place. It is time when I often hear God most clearly and sense God's presence.

Over many years, the early hours of Sunday morning have been the time that I tend to write sermons. I read scripture on the previous Monday and note I take from commentaries and then I allow it to 'sit' until the latter part of the week when I may look at it all again; but Sunday's are writing time. 

Some of you will react in horror that I might leave it all that late. I am self-awareness enough to know that I work best to a deadline and a few hours to write up my thinking certainly galvanises things!

But...

I am also self-aware enough to know that the early hours of the morning, when the house is quiet and dark, is a time when I listen best.

Mark's Gospel records Jesus praying early whilst it was still dark and the women go to Jesus' tomb at a similar hour only to find Jesus raised.

Those who live the Religious life usually have an ordered pattern of prayer which usually begins in the earliest hours of the day. Benedict took his inspiration from Psalm 119:164 where it says, '... seven times a day will I praise you...'

~~~

As I began this experiment in silence I've decided to use those some time in those hours as a time to pray in silence. 

I am the first awake in the house and I have managed to form a pattern where I will say a very simple Dawn Office as the day begins. I didn't want a book as I need to say it whilst not only the world but also the bedroom is still dark. I wanted something I could say whilst the house was still in that peace of those early hours. I needed something that wasn't too taxing but would enable me to give thanks for the gift of the day; to ground myself in scripture; that wasn't too long; and was simple enough to allow the liturgy to do what the liturgy should do - and that is carry me into the day when I'm just waking.

I found what I was looking for in 'Prayers to Start My Day' by David O' Malley SDB.

It is a simple unfussy liturgy. It leads me through scripture to reflect on how I will live and act this day as a result. The Office concludes rooting me in the life of the Church Universal as we pray a translation of the Benedictus and the Lord's Prayer. The Office concludes with a prayer as I get on with my day. But then comes the gem...

At the very end of the Office, we are left a verse of scripture linked to the themes and flow of the liturgy, to say quietly over the course of the day. It's a sort of memory verse. As I began this part of my experiment in silence I repeated the verse at the end of the Office several times, trying to get it into my sleepy head. Now a couple of months in, I'm not giving myself a hard time if I haven't remembered the verse by bedtime as I know that I don't just read scripture, but that scripture reads me, and that in some way, these short words will be shaping my life in Christlikeness.

What I have noticed as I use these silent moments as the day begins is that beginning in prayer shapes my mood and my attitude. It orients my heart and enables me to begin as I know I want to - in silent gratitude for all that lies ahead.