Our worship series, Evolution of Church, continues this coming Sunday with emphasis on the monastic communities that formed in the deserts in the first centuries of our Christian tradition.
As Christianity emerged as the official religion of the Roman Empire, women and men who sought to follow the ways of Jesus fled to the Egyptian desert to live in monastic communities. Living together in intentional community in the most inaccessible of locations, they became known as desert mothers and fathers.
The pattern of living for monks revolved around prayer and contemplation based upon the hours of the day. “In the mid-4th century, Basil drew up a set of monastic rules for regulating the daily life of urban monastic groups. He noted 8 daily occasions for prayer: early in the morning, at the third hour, at the sixth, at the ninth, when the day’s work is finished, at nightfall, midnight and before the dawn. The daytime hours… divided the work day; the rest frame times of leisure and sleep.” Basil’s early rules have shaped the life of monastics from the beginning to the present day with very little change. ( quote from A Brief history of Christian Worship by James F. White pp 53-54)
How does prayer “fit” into your daily life? What does prayer look like for you these days? How might prayer become a more significant part of your efforts to be rooted in Grace and growing in faith and reaching in love?
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