Category Archives: Let us Pray

Links to daily prayer with occasional comments

Let us Pray

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

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St. Paul’s Cycle of Prayer: Wednesday – Paul’s Place after school program and the St. Paul’s Day School

The Feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist

(this post was written 6/24 but I didn’t realize it was not published)

I found a seat at the gate of my connecting flight in the Atlanta airport, waiting to wing out to Salt Lake City and General Convention. I had time, so I pulled out my phone and used the Mission St. Clare app to say Morning Prayer.

They include this prayer at the end of today’s office:

Almighty and eternal God, 

so draw our hearts to you, 

so guide our minds, 

so fill our imaginations, 

so control our wills, 

that we may be wholly yours, 

utterly dedicated unto you; 

and then use us, we pray you, as you will, 

and always to your glory and the welfare of your people; 

through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Isn’t this just what the Baptizer did? He knew he must decrease so Christ could increase. He didn’t want the spotlight or the accolades or the credit. He wanted to make a way for Jesus. A good lesson for all pastors (looking at you, TV preachers with way better hair than me!).

May we all do the same

Let us Pray, My Main Blog

Tuesday, June 23, 2015 and off to General Convention

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I am posting this on the main blog as well as the prayer blog…..

St. Paul’s Cycle of Prayer: Tuesday – Seekers and other Young Adults, those in our community who are unchurched, and especially Family Promise and CROS ministries

Early in the morning I leave for General Convention in Salt Lake City. This is my 4th time to be part of the Mississippi deputation and each time has been a great honor. As a member of the Task Force on Marriage, I will be very busy behind the scenes working with the legislative committee on marriage and the other task force members as well. I hope to see many old friends and make new ones!

I will be blogging on my Main Blog (what a creative name!) from GC. This morning, as I was reading Morning Prayer, I thought I would put a note on the Prayer Blog that I won’t be updating it as often because of time constraints at GC. Which led me to think I probably won’t have time to say MP or EP while gone. Which then led me to say – are you stupid? GC is so intense, there is so much to do and so much to consider and so much to take in and so many places to be and often tense conversations and weighty matters to debate and in all that madness, the worst thing I could do is shirk a spiritual discipline because I don’t have time for it while at a church gathering!

Of course we pray every day at legislative sessions, committee meetings and the like. We share Eucharist together each day, worship at GC is really wonderful. But this discipline of daily prayer, solitary daily prayer but with the understanding that I am hoping to share something from that practice on the prayer blog, is just the foundation I need each day at GC. I hope you are praying with me!

I was struck by the so familiar words this morning from the Venite:

Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, *
and kneel before the Lord our Maker.

For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. *
Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!

I hope all of us attending GC will remember these words – and that we humble ourselves and bow down before the Lord, remembering we are the sheep of his hand and that today, each day, we will hearken to God’s voice. Will you pray that with me?

#GC78

Let us Pray

Sunday, June 21, 2015

St. Paul’s Cycle of Prayer: Sunday Clergy, Staff, Wardens and Vestry and the Rector Search (click HERE to read the Rector Search prayer)

Click “Prayer Instructions” on the left to see online resources for the Daily Offices and the St. Paul’s Weekly Cycle of Prayer

A Collect For the Church

Gracious Father, we pray for your holy Catholic Church. Fill it with all truth, in all truth with all peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in any thing it is amiss, reform it. Where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake of Jesus Christ your Son our Savior. Amen.

As the Episcopal Church gathers in Salt Lake City for the 78th General Convention (GC), I hope you will hold all of us in prayer. May God grant us the courage to do what is right and the wisdom to discern the movement of the Holy Spirit amongst us.

The Task Force on the Study of Marriage, on which I serve, will be quite busy at GC. I would appreciate your prayers for us, for the special Legislative Committee on Marriage, and for those who will seek God’s will regarding what we have to say about marriage at this GC.

Meanwhile – I ask your prayers for all fathers today, in every shape and form they may come.

Lastly – I ask your prayers for all those who preach this day. With the Charleston news so heavy on our hearts, may God grant us all courage, wisdom, and, as Paul says in the 2nd lesson today, the power of God.

Let us Pray

Saturday, June 20, 2015

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.

You can find links to online versions of the Daily Offices HERE

Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart, that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The above prayer for “Social Justice” has been on my heart and lips since Wednesday. “Suspicions disappear and hatreds cease”. Racism is a sin that continues to plague our nation. Why is it still so prevalent? What drives this hate? Why do we teach our children to hate, or to look down upon, those of other ethnicity? How can any follower of Jesus Christ ever utter hate speech toward another human simply based on their nationality or skin color? Just last Sunday we heard St. Paul say we no longer look at others from a human point of view – as Christians, can we not just start there? Teach that? Live that?

May we live in justice and peace but first may divisions be healed and hatred cease.

 

Let us Pray

Friday, June 19, 2015

St. Paul’s Cycle of Prayer:  Friday – Daughters of the King, Brotherhood of St. Andrew, Marthas, worship volunteers (acolytes, ushers and greeters, chalice bearers) and all over volunteer groups who work so tirelessly and joyfully for the Kingdom of God and the Body of Christ at St. Paul’s.

(as always click HERE  for ways you can say the Daily Offices online)

With the news from Charleston weighing heavily on my mind and heart this morning, I was struck by two things from reading Morning Prayer.

We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves

Such familiar words from our confession of sin, words that we might gloss over, or that have become so rote we don’t really hear ourselves utter them any more. Certainly this is a sin we all struggle with. Would that we could see everyone as our neighbor, but more than that – truly love them as we love ourselves. What a world we would have if we could do so! Maybe we just start there.

Brothers what should we do? Peter said to them  “repent and be baptized”.

What a sermon! What a response! Could you imagine finishing a sermon and people standing and asking what should we do? People that do not know God, do not know about Jesus? Or even people that do? Peter says “save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” And then they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Repentance and the turning that comes with it should result in prayer, fellowship, study, the breaking of bread. We need more of that. And we need to love our neighbors and welcome them to the same.