Today the church remembers Edward the Confessor, a late Anglo-Saxon king so called because he lived a saintly life but was not martyred. He built a church in the eleventh century that was demolished in 1245 and subsequently rebuilt as the present Westminster Abbey.

Edward’s body was moved several times after his death, but was finally reinstated in the Shrine at the very centre of the Abbey, where it remains to this day. A cult grew up around miracles associated with his relics, and for a time he was considered the patron saint of England.

Edward’s shrine is the only one in England to have survived the Reformation. It stands as a reminder of a era when the way we moved through the world, and through time, was remarkably different to the way we do now. Monks and nuns said the daily office, a series of regular services that began before daybreak and ended with night prayer, just before bed. They sang the psalms so often that by the third year in the cloister, a monk would often have memorised the entire psalter. We have a reminder of this monastic pattern in the Church of England’s daily pattern of prayer, which consists of morning prayer, evening prayer, and compline.

I’ve been at St Mary’s for nearly a month now, and I am at morning prayer every day. It is humbling to see the devotion of those who come every day, faithfully saying the office in a way that echoes the world of the mediaeval monk and yet could not be more different; we all know that this peaceful intensity is a temporary reprieve, and the world that waits for us outside is all busyness. And yet, from the moment the bells strike nine until we put away our chairs and books twenty minutes later, we inhabit a contemplative, nearly monastic space. We pray for the world, for the church, for the sick and suffering, for each other; we work our way through readings from the Old and New Testaments and the psalms, getting a little further each day. I still read the prayers too quickly when I lead; it’s hard to slow down, to be truly still in body and mind. The people around me have prayed together for months. They know that it takes time to feel comfortable in the silences.

I don’t imagine I’ll ever have the psalter memorised - far from it. That time is gone. But daily corporate prayer has been good for me in ways I’m only just beginning to discover. It is the spiritual centre of the life of the universal church. See you there next time.

Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
——
Morning prayer (9.00am) and the Holy Eucharist (12.15pm) are celebrated Monday to Friday in the chancel.
All are welcome. 

Esther Brazil

Ministerial Assistant