One of the aspects of the my 1928 BCP and "continuing" Anglican formation for which I constantly give thanks is the strong emphasis that was placed on reading the daily offices of Morning and Evening Prayer. These offices contain thousands of years of prayer: going from the Hebrews all the way down to the contemporary Church. When one prays the offices, instead of he grasping them and their spirit, the opposite is true - they grasp us. And they fold us into this great tradition prayer from the people of God, which, like a river, carries us down stream towards the new heavens and new earth, and our eternal home. In times of spiritual aridity, being in that stream keeps us alive and moving in the right direction.
I am convinced that it takes several years to really even begin to learn to pray and meditate on the divine office. Those who have been especially important to me in terms of learning to become a priest (CHJ+, RU+, MLW+, RD+, CM+, among others) have all emphasized the great importance of praying the Divine Office. It is interesting to note that when the English Church was at one of its lowest periods spiritually speaking (during the Age of Reason), the daily, public recitation of the offices corresponding declined... though, granted, there was also major clergy shortage during this period. I think the renewal of classical Anglicanism, and continuing Anglicanism, is going to come out of the Prayer Book and especially the regular, consistent use of the daily offices by both clergy and laity as Cranmer envisioned. If prayer (specifically "common" prayer) is not the ground and foundation of all that we do, then any edifice that we try to construct, no matter how good our intentions, will come crumbling down.
Experience and common sense has taught me that, besides the mass, the offices are what make a person truly Anglican. Many people whom I have known who've left the Anglican fold have not been grounded in any way in the daily offices, or even the Prayer Book for that matter, even though they may have attended a "traditionalist" TEC parish. I remember years ago one such person telling me that he was going to begin reading Morning and Evening Prayer.... this after he had been a pretty devout traditionalist Anglican for several years. But it is hard to leave the Church for supposedly greener pastures when you are doing what the Church is supposed to be doing. Because when you do that, the pastures here stay continually green and lush.
Perhaps one of the unintended results of the liturgical movement in the Anglican world was marginalization of the offices. While it is good that the centrality of the Eucharist was affirmed by this movement, to set the two services against each other is a perversion of Cranmer's spirit. The great wisdom of Cranmer in revising the breviary to make Morning and Evening Prayer was eventually seen by the Roman Church, which revised her breviary in a similar manner after Vatican II, creating an option for "Morning and Evening Prayer" in the Liturgy of the Hours. On the heals of this came the recommendation that Roman laity pray the Liturgy of the Hours, joining in with their clergy. In Baltimore, where I used to live, there were several Roman parishes that had groups that met to pray their divine office.
