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.

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.

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.

St. Paul’s Cycle of Prayer:  Thursday – The people of Bondeau, Haiti, especially Pere Phanord, the school teachers and medical clinic volunteers; for our Cursillo community

Feast day of Bernard Mizeki martyr

Our optional lessons for today, the feast day of Bernard Mizeki, who was born in Mozambique and was converted to Christianity by brothers of the Society of Saint John the Evanglist and then served as a misisonary in South Africa and Zimbabwe where he was murdered for his faith, are very striking in light of the horrible news from Charleston, S.C. Nine new martyrs were killed in cold blood and it appears only because they dared to worship while black.

It seems impossible for us to have a logical conversation about guns in this country, nor about racism, nor about mental health issues. Instead, we are complicit because we keep electing officials who don’t have the guts to do anything about any of this. And since most elections these days are bought and sold by the rich and powerful I wonder if we will ever have the will, as a nation, to really insist on change from our leaders.

So that leaves us – where we must pray, must stay the course against racism, must insist on justice for all the children of God, and where we must hold our leaders accountable. As a nation, we should be ashamed. And as followers of the Prince of Peace, we should not tolerate this any more. 

Meanwhile for those lives lost, I leave you with the Revelation reading from today in honor of Mizeki. May these words provide some comfort to those who grieve.

Revelation 7:13-17

13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, ‘Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?’ 14I said to him, ‘Sir, you are the one that knows.’ Then he said to me, ‘These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 

15 For this reason they are before the throne of God,

   and worship him day and night within his temple,

   and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. 

16 They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;

   the sun will not strike them,

   nor any scorching heat; 

17 for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd,

   and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,

and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’

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

Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The collect above is for Proper 6 and is said beginning on that Sunday at Eucharist and at the Daily Offices all week. It is a good way to “collect” our thoughts and prayers as we hear God’s word read and preached, ask God’s forgiveness of our sins, and share in Christ’s body and blood at the Eucharist. It is also helpful as we pray the offices together, because these words are powerful reminders of our calling. The Church as God’s household, the grace of God which asks each of us, and equips each of us in our own way, to proclaim God’s truth boldly and minister God’s justice with compassion.

I pray I can do both – proclaim truth with boldness and minister justice with compassion. I pray you can also.