Anyway, I was in there yesterday and picked up a copy of the St. Francis Prayer Book, compiled by Jon Sweeney. Sweeney, who’s Episcopalian I think, has edited an edition of Paul Sabitier’s biography of St. Francis and written a book appreciating the saints from a Protestant perspective.

The St. Francis Prayer Book consists primarily of a one-week daily office (morning and evening prayer) with a particularly Franciscan emphasis. The Psalms and readings (chiefly from the Gospels) are selected to reflect Franciscan spirituality, and they are framed by prayers attributed to him or his followers, as well as traditional prayers of the church. In addition, each day’s prayers and texts are chosen to reflect a particular theme such as detachment from possessions, peace in human relationships, and love for God’s creation that we associate with Francis.

Sweeney also contributes a couple of historical essays about Francis’ approach to prayer, emphasizing the importance he placed on praying the Office, times of silence for listening to God, and meditating on the figure of Jesus as we have it in the Gospels. Sweeney also mentions the memorization of texts and prayers as particularly important in Francis’ time, and as something that modern Christians could stand to recover. This may be a place where the various simpler forms of the office now available may have an advantage; they enable us to enter more deeply into certain prayers and texts through repitition and memorization. The downside, of course, is that you aren’t exposed to the full sweep of Scripture as you would be in following, say, the daily lectionary of the Episcopal office.

Naturally the test of any prayer book is actually using it to pray, which I haven’t done much of yet, but it’s a very nicely put together little book.