St. Paul’s Cycle of Prayer – Saturday – for the Green Team and for all Creation, for our ministries to Seniors, and for all on our Parish prayer list.

The Mission St. Clare version of Morning Prayer today includes this Opening Sentence:

You shall receive power when the Holy Ghost has come upon you; and you shall be my witness in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Acts 1:8

It shouldn’t be surprising to me how the Holy Spirit, through Scripture reading, study, and prayer, so often reminds us, grounds us, brings us back to keeping the main thing, the main thing. Right off the bat this morning, the first words of Morning Prayer for me speak to me right what I need to hear. In the midst of the legislative process, rules of order, debates over punctuation, and also some really, really important conversations and debate, to be reminded of the power given us by the Holy Spirit and the Great Commandment from Matthew 28 which is echoed here in the Acts passage – go and be witnesses for Jesus to all the ends of the earth. You have the power to be a witness. In all the mish-mash and muddling and disagreement, we have Jesus, right in the center, known to us in the breaking of the bread, calling us to be witnesses, to feed the poor and clothe the naked and provide water for the thirsty and to visit the sick and those in prison, to wash each other’s feet and to love one another, neighbor and even enemy, the way He loves us. He first loved us. He first loved us. He first loved us. And then, sent us to go and do likewise.

Amen.