Join us: The community that prays together, stays together! 🤗🙏

Morning Prayer: Did you know?

The practice of saying daily morning and evening prayer in Anglican tradition derives from the pre-Reformation canonical hours, Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline which were required to be said in churches and by clergy daily.

This practice derived from the earliest centuries of Christianity, and ultimately from the pre-Christian Jewish practice of reciting the Shema prayer in the morning and evening as well as a remembrance of the daily sacrifices in the Temple.

The first 1549 Book of Common Prayer (BCP) combined the first three services of the day into a single service called Mattins and the latter two into a single service called Evensong (which, before the Reformation, was the English name for Vespers). The 1552 edition of the BCP renamed these services to Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, respectively.

This pattern of daily Anglican worship remained essentially unchanged in most cathedrals and other large churches ever since.

Anglican clergy are required to say Morning and Evening Prayer daily; devout lay Anglicans also make this a part of their spiritual practice. This is the practice of our cathedral.

In addition to our clergy, three members, Carol Kysela, Sean Hopperton, and Philippa Campsie, lead morning prayer six days a week for our community.

Please join us, let’s pray together, and spread the word to your friends and acquaintances.

Contact us Monday through Thursday * at info@stjamescathedral.ca to receive the Zoom link or join the live-stream Morning Prayer via the Cathedral YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/c/stjamescathedraltoronto

*On Fridays and Saturdays, Morning Prayer is posted online on our YouTube Channel at 8:00am.