When I was in college, our chaplain (who was Lutheran) worked to launch a simple, ecumenical morning prayer service in my senior year. It was a chance for a handful of us who were seminary-bound to get some preaching practice in. More importantly, of course, it was a chance to start every day with a ritualized, community acknowledgement of our Creator. 

For me, it was also a great way to make the schedule of my day come together. I spent most of my time that year doing research, and I don’t think I had a single morning class. So morning prayer made me get up every morning—I mean, it encouraged me to—and get a start on the day’s work. But it also became a routine where I’d get up for morning prayer, go have coffee with the chaplain and a couple of other folks from the service, and then still get to the library for an early start to the day’s work.

I loved it.

I spent many, many years after college beating myself up about the sorry state of my spiritual life. I never developed a regular prayer practice—honestly, I never quite knew what it might look like to have one. It wasn’t until I returned to my baptismal roots in the Episcopal Church and discovered the Daily Office (and, specifically, the streamlined versions intended for individuals and families) that I began to shape a regular daily practice . . . in my car. Weird, sure, but it works—I have a prayer routine now, even if it falters on days when I don’t drive anywhere.

On our family vacation in December, the practice of morning prayer became an unexpected highlight for me. I went to morning prayer at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York (near where I went to seminary) before we took off for Europe. (It was, incidentally, celebrated in St. Columba Chapel inside the cathedral.) Then, in the couple of days we spent in England, I went to morning prayer at the Yorkminster and Canterbury cathedrals. 

They were all tiny gatherings. But they all got me up out of bed to start my morning with prayer, providing a foundation of prayer on which I could then build the schedule of my day. 

That’s morning prayer in a nutshell, for me, and that’s part of the reason why I’m excited to see if we can launch that practice in our St. Columba community this year.

Does the idea of a morning prayer practice sound interesting to you? Does your morning schedule need a solid foundation of prayer? Are you interested in learning more? Please fill out this form, and let’s see if we can make a Morning Prayer service at St. Columba’s into a reality!

James Wyatt, Sr. Warden & Morning Prayer Practitioner