The Divine Hours, Volume II: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime (Divine Hours) (v. 2)
The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertimeby Phyllis  Tickle draws on the Book of Common Prayer and the Church Fathers, as well as the  New Jerusalem Bible, to provide daily readings and prayers (for morning, noon,  vespers, and complin) for every day between October and January. Tickle's book  of hours modernizes the ancient practice of fixed-hour prayer, as originally  practiced by the Jews ("Seven times a day do I praise you" [Psalm 119:164]) and  adapted by early Christians. The book's introduction provides a short history of  this tradition of prayer, whose centrality in Christian worship was cemented in  the sixth century, when St. Benedict fashioned the rule of his community  according to the schedule of fixed-hour prayer. The introduction also encourages  readers to experiment with sung and chanted prayer (the encouragement includes  the tantalizing observation by Saint Augustine that "Whoever sings, prays  twice"). The discipline described byThe Divine Hoursis demanding, but  the rewards, as Tickle describes them, are great. Christians who practice fixed-hour prayer "find themselves filled with a conscious awareness that they are  handing their worship, at its final 'Amen,' on to other Christians in the next  time zone. Like relay runners passing a lighted torch, those who do the work of  fixed-hour prayer create thereby a continuous cascade of praise before the  throne of God."