The Lay Community
of Saint Benedict
Daily Prayer
Prayer is at the heart of our lay Benedictine spirituality.
We turn up. This is how you can define the heart of our prayer. We turn up for God because by coming together we can express our love and thanks as well as our needs and worries. We turn up for each other to be a support on our life’s journeys.
Introduction to LCSB Prayer
In our prayer we are centred on the Word of God through the psalms and the scripture. The psalms are the prayers of Christ Himself, who prayed them to the very end of His life. When we pray the psalms, we are in communion with Christians across the world. As Fr Timothy Radcliffe put it, the psalms are outside of time and place. “We may not be feeling abandoned but, for example, our brothers and sisters in Iraq are, and we are praying with them.”
There is also an ecumenical significance in our prayer as we are “a church unified simply in the Word of God” (Dr Rowan Williams). Every Sunday night we celebrate the diversity of the community through an ecumenical service.
Members are also encouraged to spend time in private prayer “approaching God in a spirit of real humility and a devotion that is open to Him alone, and free from distracting thoughts.” (Rule of St Benedict Chapter 20).
As we are in a public place in our online prayer, we have put in place prayer guidance in order to safeguard confidential information.
