Daily Office origins encapsulated

Recently I was reading about the origins of the Daily Office. It is based on the Romans introducing centralized time to the middle east. Each three hours starting at 6 a.m. would receive a chime from a central clock to make sure work was progressing effectively. Jews quickly incorporated the chimes as calls to prayer using passages in Psalms that talk about praising God seven times a day. Of course early Christianity saw itself as authentic Judaism and carried the practice on. As the New Testament became known within the church and ideas such as "praying with out ceasing" were introduced, this practice became even more important. As the church began to expand to multiple time zones and eventually around the world, there was a sense that one congregation's prayer would dove tail into another's creating a perpetual rhythm of prayer and praise. The prayer was refined over the years to a form of liturgy and became known as the Daily or Divine Office. The word "office" referring to work, not place. So the early church saw communion and the Daily Office as the two staples of Christian existence.

As I participate in the Daily Office again I can understand how the church perceived this to be its "work." While it risks legalism in the same way that free-form worship risks disorder, it creates a web of interactions with the Lord and integrations between the Lord and the tangible world I am in. This allows for the grounding of all of these relationships, harmonies, and incongruities together in time and space. Faith becomes a little more concrete for a few moments and those moments hopefully influence all that is around.