sanctifying daily time

Psalm 119:1-24; Job 6,1;7:1-21; Acts 10:1-16; John 7:1-13

Cornelius... a devout man, who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God. About the ninth hour of the day he saw a vision...
(Acts 10:1-2)
Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray... (v. 9)

Yesterday I listened to a talk by Phyllis Tickle on restoring ancient disciplines, given at Mars Hill Bible Church this summer. She spoke of seven disciplines being restored that were largely lost in the Reformation. Three of them are disciplines of space, and four are of time. I may blog on the dicristina site about them, but here I want to mention the first discipline of time that she spoke of was "fixed hour prayer" - at about 6:00, 9:00, 12:00, 3:00, 6:00, 9:00 (in the monastic tradition there were actually seven "hours" of prayer. This tradition may be reflected in a number of places in the book of Acts, including these two references from Acts 10.

My friend Glen Miley came by today and showed me a couple of daily prayer books, one of which he is using with great benefit. The Book of Common Prayer brought four "hours" of prayer over from the catholic tradition, Morning Prayer, Noonday Prayer, Evening Prayer, Compline.

I am mulling this over today, "sanctifying" time, daily, through remembering consciously and deliberately, though not necessarily conspicuously, to pray at fixed times (not just in the morning and before bed).

With my whole heart I seek you;
let me not wander from your commandments! ...
I will meditate on your precepts
and fix my eyes on your ways.
I will delight in your statutes;
I will not forget your word.
(Psalm 119:10, 15-16)