The main activity at St. Gregory's Abbey consists of public corporate prayer in the Abbey Church, and the main part of that prayer takes the form of recitation of the Psalms. On a normal day, we gather together seven times for communal prayer, beginning at four in the morning for the office of Matins and continuing at intervals throughout the day for the other offices of Lauds, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline. (The term "office" comes from the Latin words opus, meaning "work", and officium, meaning "duty", "obligation", or "service" . The names of the various offices come from Latin terms that hint at either the time of day at which the certain office is performed or at some of the psalms used in that office.) Through the course of a week, the entire book of 150 Psalms is recited. Some psalms are used only once; others are used several times a week or even every day.
     Although some special days and holidays utilize certain psalms reflecting the mood of the day, most often we simply recite them in order of their appearance in the Psalter. Even on those special days that are given particular psalms, we do not recite them at all offices that day; most of the offices for those days still use the psalms assigned for that day of the week. This schedule causes us to recite seemingly inappropriate psalms sometimes: happy ones on solemn fasts, and sad ones on happy feasts. It also means that at any time of day, a particular monk might be reciting a psalm that does not match his mood at the time. While that can be distressing for someone not used to it, it has become a great comfort for many people throughout history. It reminds us that our situations and feelings are not permanent; the psalms sung at Friday Sext might not fit a particular monk's concerns this week, but they might perfectly meet the needs of the monk next to him or of one of the guests in the church, and they might coincide with his own next week. It also reminds us that the prayer is not all about the individual. Corporate prayer is corporate prayer - not private prayer (there are times of day set aside for private prayer).
     In a way, all prayer is corporate prayer, even private meditation and scripture reading. Since each Christian is a part of the Body of Christ, everything done by one affects all the others. All Christians at prayer make up the Body of Christ praying with and for the entire world. We are united throughout space and time by the Holy Spirit praying through us, and since the Spirit of God is infinite, imminent, and transcendent, true prayer reflects those qualities. We as individuals are important, but no more or less than all other individuals. One might even say that as children of God with the Holy Spirit filling us and binding us together, we are all infinitely important. So while our prayer should not be completely dictated by our individual desires, all of our needs and wants (real or imagined) are addressed by all prayers around the world: past, present, and future.
     In a way, it is not even we who are praying, since it is the Holy Spirit who is praying through us. Our perspective is so tiny that we can't know how to pray. Our best prayer, either as a group or as individuals, is to merely present ourselves as temples for the Spirit to occupy. We don't have to "get it right" when we pray, we just have to give ourselves to God. That doesn't mean that we can plead ignorance and ineptitude as an excuse for not praying. Prayer is a discipline that we will follow if we truly want to grow. We will make and meet commitments to turn our attention to God as best we can in light of personal aptitudes and other duties. We will keep praying, corporately and individually, even when it seems we are getting nothing out of it, or if it seems we are doing it wrong, because it is not only about us.
     Prayer is about everyone: it is about you and me as individuals, it is about God, and it is about every other person who has or will be in this world, whether they pray or not. We are not alone. We are surrounded and sustained by the Spirit of God filling the entire world as well as filling the individual souls of people at prayer around the world now, throughout history, and for ages to come. Some of the prayers sustaining us now might come from nuns, monks, and their guests who in the roughly seventeen hundred years of Christian monasticism have recited psalms that did not match their mood. We should be grateful for that, and one of the best ways to express our gratitude is for us to join in the psalmody.