Open unto me

February 14, 2025February 13, 2025 / Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

Open unto me, light for my darkness
Open unto me, courage for my fear
Open unto me, hope for my despair
Open unto me, peace for my turmoil
Open unto me, joy for my sorrow
Open unto me, strength for my weakness
Open unto me, wisdom for my confusion
Open unto me, forgiveness for my sins
Open unto me, tenderness for my toughness
Open unto me, love for my hates
Open unto me, Thy Self for myself
Lord, Lord, open unto me!

Howard Thurman, 1899-1981, American author, educator and civil rights leader

source

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Psalm 146:7b-9

The Lord sets the prisoners free;
the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the sojourners;
he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

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order my day, merciful God

October 17, 2024June 14, 2025 / Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

The Apotheosis of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Francisco de Zurbarán, Wikimedia Commons

Most merciful God,

order my day so that I may know what you want me to do,

and then help me to do it.

Let me not be elated by success or depressed by failure.

I want to take pleasure in what pleases you,

and only to grieve at what displeases you.

For the sake of your love I would willingly forgo all temporal comforts.

May all the joys in which you have no part weary me.

May all the work which you do not prompt be tedious to me.

Let my thoughts frequently turn to you,

that I may be obedient to you without complaint,

patient without grumbling,

cheerful without solemnity.

Let me hold you in awe without feeling terrified of you,

and let me be an example to others without any trace of pride.

Thomas Aquinas, 1225 – 1274, Roman Catholic philosopher and theologian

The HarperCollins Book of Prayers

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2 Timothy 2:22

Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts.

Instead, pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love, and peace.

Enjoy the companionship of those who call on the Lord with pure hearts.

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the enjoyment of God

September 24, 2024 / Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

Jonathan Edwards engraving, via Wikimedia Commons

God, You are the highest good of the reasonable creature,

and the enjoyment of You is the only happiness

with which our souls can be satisfied.

To go to heaven fully to enjoy You,

is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here.

Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, children,

or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows.

But the enjoyment of You is the substance.

These are but scattered beams, but You are the sun.

These are but streams, but You are the fountain.

These are but drops, but You are the ocean.

Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758, American theologian and pastor

Prayers for Today

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Isaiah 61:10

I am overwhelmed with joy in the Lord my God!
For he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation
and draped me in a robe of righteousness.
I am like a bridegroom dressed for his wedding
or a bride with her jewels.

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Easter Prayer of Pope Gregory the Great

April 2, 2024April 1, 2024 / Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

source by Luca Giordano via Wikipedia

It is only right, with all the powers of our heart and mind,

to praise You Father and Your Only-Begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Dear Father, by Your wondrous condescension of Loving-Kindness

toward us, Your servants, You gave up Your Son.

Dear Jesus You paid the debt of Adam for us to the Eternal Father

by Your Blood poured forth in Loving-Kindness.
You cleared away the darkness of sin

by Your magnificent and radiant Resurrection.
You broke the bonds of death and rose from the grave as a Conqueror.
You reconciled Heaven and earth.
Our life had no hope of Eternal Happiness before You redeemed us.
Your Resurrection has washed away our sins,

restored our innocence and brought us joy.
How inestimable is the tenderness of Your Love!

We pray You, Lord, to preserve Your servants

in the peaceful enjoyment of this Easter happiness.
We ask this through Jesus Christ Our Lord,

Who lives and reigns with God The Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

forever and ever.

Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540 – 604) of Rome, Patron Saint of Teachers

source

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1 Peter 1:3

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again

to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead

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All Saints Day prayer

November 1, 2022October 31, 2022 / Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

image by geralt via pixabay

Before you, O God,

we remember today the ones who went before us.

Not held back by the awesomeness of the task

they followed you with tenacity and joy.

Full of courage and trust they went to new places,

ready to stand and suffer with you.

Like a cloud of many witnesses

they stand around us.

Before you, O God,

we remember the saints of our day,

who do not live by the rigid letter of the law

but by the wild demands of faith,

always prepared to give more,

always ready to be turned inside out,

knowing that new ways can only be found

through risk and pain.

Like a cloud of many witnesses

they stand around us.

Eternal God,

we thank you for the witnesses of all times and all places.

May the stories of their lives show us the richness of your grace.

May they inspire us to look deep within our souls.

May they encourage us to take the risk of faith

and to serve you in new ways.

Francis Brienen, United Reformed Church, UK

Prayers Encircling the World

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Hebrews 12:1-3

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,

let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely,

and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith,

who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,

despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself,

so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

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Your way laid open before me

July 22, 2022July 21, 2022 / Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

_{Image, Ion Chibzii from Chisinau. , Moldova., CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons}

The way You have laid open before me is an easy way,

compared with the hard way of my own will

which leads back to Egypt and to bricks without straw.

If You allow people to praise me, I shall not worry.

If You let them blame me, I shall worry even less.

If You send me work, I shall embrace it with joy.

It will be rest to me because it is Your will.

Only save me from myself.

Save me from my own, private, poisonous urge

to change everything, to act without reason,

to move for movement’s sake,

to unsettle everything that You have ordained.

Let me rest in Your will and be silent.

Then the light of Your joy will warm my life.

Its fire will burn in my heart and shine for Your glory.

This is what I live for. Amen, amen.

Thomas Merton, 1915 – 1968, American Catholic writer and Trappist monk

Dialogues with Silence

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Psalm 16:5-11

Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup;
you make my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.
I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me.
I keep my eyes always on the Lord.
With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest secure,
because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
nor will you let your faithful one see decay.
You make known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

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prepare us to receive your gift

December 21, 2021December 20, 2021 / Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

Lord, may you now let us this year once more approach the light, celebration, and joy of Christmas Day that brings us face to face with the greatest thing there is: your love, with which you so loved the world that you gave your only Son, so that all of us may believe in him and therefore not be lost, but may have eternal life.

What could we possibly bring and give to you? So much darkness in our human relationships and in our own hearts! So many confused thoughts, so much coldness and defiance, so much carelessness and hatred! So much over which you cannot rejoice, that separates us from one another and certainly cannot help us! So much that runs directly against the message of Christmas!

What should you possibly do with such gifts? And what are you to do with such people as we all are? But all of this is precisely what you want to receive from us and take from us at Christmas – the whole pile of rubbish and ourselves, just as we are – in order to give us in return Jesus, our Savior, and in him a new heaven and a new earth, new hearts and a new desire, new clarity and a new hope for us and for all people.

Be among us once again, on this final Sunday before the celebration, as we together prepare to receive him as your gift! Make it so that we may rightly speak, hear, and pray, in proper, thankful amazement about everything that you have in mind for all of us, that you have already decided regarding all of us, and that you have already done for all of us! Amen

Karl Barth, 1886 – 1968, Swiss Reformed theologian

Fifty Prayers

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John 3:16-17

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

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go with me in a new exodus

January 27, 2021January 26, 2021 / Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

_{Saint Peter Liberated from Prison / The Metropolitan Museum of Art / CC0}

O God of fire and freedom,

deliver me from my bondage

to what can be counted

and go with me in a new exodus

toward what counts,

but can only be measured

in bread shared

and swords become plowshares;

in bodies healed

and minds liberated;

in songs sung

and justice done;

in laughter in the night

and joy in the morning;

in love through all seasons

and great gladness of heart;

in all people coming together

and a kingdom coming in glory;

in your name being praised

and my becoming an alleluia,

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Ted Loder, born 1930, American Methodist minister

Guerrillas of Grace Prayers for the Battle

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Psalm 34:4-6

I sought the Lord, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to him are radiant,
and their faces shall never be ashamed.
This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him
and saved him out of all his troubles.

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