Evening Prayer

To make a bookend of my new habit of reading the morning prayer service, today I read evening prayer to close the day. I'd forgotten how much I loved the evening collects. I couldn't read just one, I read them all. (I suppose if I read the evening prayer service every day, I wouldn't feel the need to do that.)

What did seem odd though, was reading the same Confession, the same Creed, the same Lord's Prayer, that I'd read this morning. I found myself jerking away mentally from reading them twice in one day ("didn't I just read this?") in the same instinctive way I might press the button on a TV remote to switch away from the channel I've found playing repeats.

But then I stopped myself. Wait, why wouldn't it be a good thing to read the Creed twice in one day? Don't I still believe it in the evening like I did in the morning? And is it as if I don't have sin to confess now, it being about twelve hours since I did it last? Is it as if I was perfect those twelve hours? And don't I still want the Lord's will to be done here on Earth, as it is in Heaven?

Finding my questions pretty rhetorical, I read and prayed all of those parts of the service again. It was funny to find myself instinctively wanting to skip what I'd already done. But it was equally strange to find myself so willing to be argued into repetition.

I think this liturgy thing is growing on me.


peace of Christ to you,
Jessica