Back in the old days, BiP (Before iPad), to say the Office you needed two books — a Book of Common Prayer and a Bible. You also needed a bunch of bookmarks and ribbons. You looked up the psalms and lessons for the day in the BCP lectionary, and then you put in ribbons and bookmarks in for the beginning of the Office, for the psalms, the lessons, and the canticles. Then you started at the beginning of the Office and flipped your way through it using the ribbons and bookmarks.
Now we can do that all online.
I confess I miss the heft of my Prayer Book-Bible and the pages worn from much use, but going online brought something I had not had very often over the years — a congregation to say the office with. Josh Thomas at dailyoffice.org has built a congregation. We intercede for the sick on a list he compiles. We pray for various causes. We pray for those in tragedies around the world. And we see photos of a lot of them.
Josh has a wonderful eye for art that tells a story or sets an atmosphere. He gives us audios for the various canticles and sometimes the psalms. He makes sure we know something about the person on a saint’s or holy one’s day. And, if you want to, you can join in a teleconference-style MP or EP each day.
His site is global. He uploads the day’s lessons and psalms and canticles not only for North Americans but for the Asia-Pacific and in Spanish. I don’t know how he manages to get it all done day after day. By now there are thousands who use his site.
So I was delighted a few years back to discover his site, and I began to use it. But then a bug bit me. I wanted to chant the office much as we had done in seminary. That’s how this website began.
I have some suggestions for how to use it.
Think of yourself as having two “books” — the propers as provided on dailyoffice.org, and chants for various parts of the office as provided on this website. And instead of using ribbons and bookmarks, now you use tabs on your browser. The first tab should be linked to dailyoffice.org, the second tab to either the MP Invitatory or the EP Invitatory as found on this site, the next tab or tabs to the psalm or psalms of the day as found in the settings on this site, the next tab to dailyoffice.org for a lesson, and after that a tab for a canticle as found on this site, and the same for a second lesson and canticle if there are ones, and that should be followed by Office Part II as found on this site, then back to dailyoffice.org for the prayers of the day, and finally back to the tab for Office Part II for the concluding chant at the end of the Office.
Describing all that sounds complicated. But it really is not. It is just a matter of going through the BCP office on dailyoffice.org and switching from time-to-time to this site to get a chant.
And there we are. Just think of the tabs on your browser as your ribbons and bookmarks; and of dailyoffice.org as having the said parts of the Office and this site as having the chanted parts.
Good praying! Good chanting!