Daily Worship in the Chapel

Weekdays at 8:00 am, 12:00 noon, and 5:00 pm

The daily offices of Morning Prayer, Midday Prayers, and Evening Prayer, led by students, take place Monday through Friday at 8:00 am, 12:00 noon, and 5:00 pm respectively. (There are exceptions to this—see below—but there is always worship of some kind taking place in the Chapel at these times.) ‘Office’ here comes from a Latin word meaning ‘work’ or ‘service’ — i.e. prayer, the work of the monastery. The Daily Offices of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer are intended to be a reconstitution of the monastic daily pattern of prayer in a form that can be kept up by anyone at any church.

Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer are simple services, 30 minutes long, usually said (rather than sung), that consist primarily of the recitation of psalms and the reading of Scripture, together with prayers. Midday Prayers is a simple 7-minute prayer service that offers a brief respite from the labours of the day.

Holy Communion. On Monday evenings, Tuesday mornings, and Thursday evenings, the office is shortened, and is followed immediately by Holy Communion. On Thursday evenings, shortened Evening Prayer begins at 4:45 so that the Choral Holy Communion may begin at 5:00. On Wednesday evenings, Evening Prayer is sung by the Chapel Choir, and thus called Evensong. On Wednesday mornings, a contemporary Eucharist is celebrated at 8 a.m. with opportunity for reflection and discussion.

Sung offices on Fridays; student meditations. On Fridays, Morning Prayer is sung to plainchant, including the psalms, and this is followed by the sung Litany. Evening Prayer on Fridays is also sung to plainchant in the same way. Very often in recent years a student has given a meditation at Evening Prayer on Friday, perhaps on a topic of their choosing, or, most recently, a favourite FYP text.