life

prayer to live in happiness and peace

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

image by Agnes Leung via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

 
O God, our Father, 
we know that the issues of life and death are in your hands, 
    and we know that you are loving us with an everlasting love.  
If it is your will, grant to us to live in happiness and in peace.
 
In all our undertakings,
    Grant us prosperity and good success.
In all our friendships,
    Grant us to find our friends faithful and true.
In all our bodily things,
    Make us fit and healthy,
        Able for the work of the day.
In all the things of the mind,
    Make us calm and serene,
        Free from anxiety and worry.
In material things,
    Save us from poverty and from want.
In spiritual things,
    Save us from doubt and from distrust.
Grant us 
    In our work satisfaction;
    In our study true wisdom;
    In our pleasure gladness;
    In our love loyalty.
 
And if misfortune does come to us, 
    grant that any trial may only bring us closer to one another and closer to you; 
    and grant that nothing may shake our certainty that you work all things together for good,
    and that a Father’s hand will never cause his child a needless tear. 
Hear this our prayer, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
 
William Barclay, 1907-1978, minister in the Church of Scotland
 
___________________________
 
 
Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
    whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water,
    that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
    for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
    for it does not cease to bear fruit.
 

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Why is there so little prayer?

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
 
Why is there so little urgency
    to get time to pray?
Why is there so little forethought 
    in the laying out of time and schedule
  so as to secure a large portion 
    of each day for prayer?
Why is there so much talking,
    yet so little prayer?
Why is there so much running to and fro,
    yet so little prayer?
Why so much bustle and business,
    yet so little prayer?
Why so many meetings with our fellow men.
    yet so few meetings with You?
Why so little being alone,
    so little thirsting of the soul 
        for the calm. sweet, hours of unbroken solitude,
    where You and your child hold fellowship 
        as if they could never part?
It is the scarcity of these solitary hours 
    that not only injures my own growth in grace
    but also makes me such an unprofitable member of Your church,
         and renders my life useless.
 
Horatius Bonar, 1808-1889, Scottish Preacher and Hymnist
Celtic Daily Prayer, freely modified
 
_________________________
 
 
Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;
    listen to my plea for grace.
In the day of my trouble I call upon you,
    for you answer me.
 

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Blessings of Time for the New Year

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image by geralt via pixabay
 
Lord, You who live outside of time,
  and reside in the imperishable moment,
  we ask Your blessing this New Year’s Day 
  upon Your gift to us of time

Bless our clocks and watches,
You who kindly direct us to observe the
  passing of minutes and hours.
May they make us aware of the miracle
  of each second of life we experience.

May these, our ticking servants
  help us not to miss that which is important,
  while You keep us from machine-like routine.
May we ever be free from being clock watchers
  and instead become those who journey through time.

Bless our calendars,
  these ordered lists of days, weeks and
  months, of holidays, holydays, fasts and feasts—
  all our special days of remembering.
May these servants, our calendars, 
  once reserved for the royal few,
  for magi and pyramid priests, 
  now grace our homes and our lives.

May they remind us of birthdays and other gift-days,
  as they teach us the secret that all life is meant
  for celebration and contemplation.

Bless, Lord, this new year, each of its 365 days and nights.
Bless us with new moons and full moons.
Bless us with happy seasons and a long life.

Grant to us, Lord, the new year’s gift of a year of love.  Amen.
 
Patmos Abbey—The Order of Saint Columba
__________________________
 
 
Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.
    Remind me that my days are numbered—
    how fleeting my life is.
You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand.
    My entire lifetime is just a moment to you;
    at best, each of us is but a breath.
We are merely moving shadows,
    and all our busy rushing ends in nothing.
We heap up wealth,
    not knowing who will spend it.
And so, Lord, where do I put my hope?
    My only hope is in you.

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our feeble reality

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image by Ray ZHUANG via Unsplash
 
Lord God, the strongest and brightest of us 
    are as fragile as a floating bubble,
    unsteady as a newborn kitten on a waxed kitchen floor.
If we keep our footing in the shaky space 
    between our arrival and departure from this world
  we owe our survival – not to mention our success – to many other people
    who held us up and helped us crawl or fly or muck our way through
    and to You, God, who keeps breathing life into our lungs
        the way a child keeps puffing air into a leaking balloon.
    We take our every step in the energy of mercy . . . 
    We see each flower, taste each drop of water,
        sense the presence of each person around us,
            through your gift of consciousness.
For all this may we be grateful.
 
Lewis Smedes, 1921 – 2002, American ethicist and author in the Reformed tradition
Prayers for Today, slightly modified
_________________________
 
 
Yes, the Sovereign Lord is coming in power.
    He will rule with a powerful arm.
    See, he brings his reward with him as he comes.
He will feed his flock like a shepherd.
    He will carry the lambs in his arms,
holding them close to his heart.
    He will gently lead the mother sheep with their young.

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believing in the resurrection of Jesus

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image, by William Hole, via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
Almighty God,
Who through the death of your Son 
    has destroyed sin and death,
And by his resurrection 
    has restored innocence and everlasting life,
That we may be delivered from the dominion of the devil,
    and our mortal bodies raised up from the dead:
Grant that we may confidently and whole-heartedly 
    believe this,
And, finally, with your saints, 
    share in the joyful resurrection of the just;
through the same Jesus Christ,
    your Son, our Lord.

Martin Luther, 1483-1546, German Reformer
 
_______________________________
 
 
But these are written that you may believe 
    that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, 
and that by believing 
    you may have life in his name.
 

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the last step of love

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Cristo crucificado, Titian via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
A few hours more,
A few minutes more,
A few instants more,
For thirty-three years it has been going on.
For thirty-three years you have lived fully minute after minute.
You can no longer escape, now; you are there, 
    at the end of your life, at the end of your road.
You are at the last extremity, at the edge of a precipice.
You must take the last step,
The last step of love,
The last step of life that ends in death.
 
You hesitate.
Three hours are long, three hours of agony;
Longer than three years of life,
Longer than thirty years of life.
 
You must decide, Lord, all is ready around you.
You are there, motionless, on your Cross.
You have renounced all activity other than embracing these 
    crossed planks for which you were made.
And yet, there is still life in your nailed body.
Let mortal flesh die, and make way for eternity.
Now, life slips from each limb, one by one, finding refuge in his 
    still beating heart.
Immeasurable heart,
Overflowing heart.
Heart heavy as the world, the world of sins and miseries that it bears.
 
Lord, one more effort.
Mankind is there, waiting unknowingly for the cry of its Saviour.
You brothers are there; they need you.
Your Father bends over you, already holding out his arms.
Lord, save us,
Save us.
 
See.
He has taken his heavy heart,
And,
Slowly,
Laboriously,
Alone between heaven and earth,
In the awesome night,
With passionate love,
He has gathered his life,
He has gathered the sin of the world,
And in a cry,
He has given all.
‘Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.’
 
Christ has just died for us.
 
Michel Quoist, 1918 – 1997, French Catholic priest and writer 
 
_____________________________
 
 
It was now about the sixth hour,
    and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 
    while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 
Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, 
    “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” 
And having said this he breathed his last.

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grace for the day

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
 
Father, thank you for the grace that has preserved my life to this moment. 
 
Now give me enough love for this day—
    a sense of love from you (so I’m not scared or driven), 
    a welling up of love for you (so I’m not proud or selfish), 
    and a resulting love for others (so I am not cold or distracted). 
Let your Spirit illumine my mind and enlarge my heart for that. 
 
And because it means nothing to begin well if one does not persevere, 
    I ask that you would continue and increase your grace in me
    until you have led me into full communion with your Son 
        Jesus Christ our Lord,
    that I may see his beautiful and great glory. 
 
And as I laid down in sleep and rose this morning only by your grace,
    keep me in a joyful, lively remembrance that whatever happens, 
    I will someday know my final rising—the resurrection—
    because Jesus Christ laid down in death for me, 
    and rose for my justification. 
 
In Jesus’s name.
 
Tim Keller, 1950-2023, NYC Presbyterian Pastor and author
 
____________________________
 
 
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 
he saved us, 
    not because of works done by us in righteousness, 
but according to his own mercy, 
    by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 
    whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 
so that being justified by his grace 
    we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

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O God, create through me

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image via pxhere
 
 
O God,
who out of nothing
    brought everything that is,
out of what I am
    bring more of what I dream
        but haven’t dared;
direct my power and passion
    to creating life
        where there is death,
    to putting flesh of action
        on bare-boned intentions,
    to lighting fires
        against the midnight of indifference,
    to throwing bridges of care 
        across canyons of loneliness;
so I can look on creation,
    together with you,
        and, behold,
            call it very good;
through Jesus Christ my Lord.
 
Ted Loder, born 1930, American Methodist minister
 
_______________________
 
 
For we are his workmanship, 
    created in Christ Jesus for good works, 
which God prepared beforehand, 
    that we should walk in them.
 

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You are . . .

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
photo by Mario La Pergola on Unsplash
 
 
You alone are holy, Lord God, Worker of Wonders.
You are mighty.  You are great.  You are the Most High.
You are omnipotent, our holy Father, King of heaven and earth.
You, Lord God, three in one, are our every good.
You, Lord God, all good, our highest good – Lord God living and true.
You are charity and love.
You are wisdom. You are humility.
You are patience.
You are security.  You are peace.
You are joy and gladness.
You are justice and temperance.
You are riches altogether sufficient.
You are beauty.  You are meekness.
You are our refreshment.
You are our hope.  You are our faith.
You are our most profound sweetness.
You are our eternal life, great and admirable Lord,
    omnipotent God, merciful Savior!
 
Carlo Carretto, 1910 – 1988, Italian writer and minister
 
____________________________
 
 
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
    “For who has known the mind of the Lord,
        or who has been his counselor?”
    “Or who has given a gift to him
        that he might be repaid?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be glory forever. Amen.

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Incarnate yourself into our hopelessness

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image / The Flight to Egypt / James Tissot
 
 
God of the homeless, the refugee, the displaced:
    we come expectant and hopeful before you.
In the world around us today
    we find ourselves surrounded by those, like Christ,
    without a place to simply be.
A season of blessing, our season of rain,
    is a curse for those without shelter.
 
You know what it is like to be displaced from your home,
    your family expelled from Israel out of fear of Herod.
In the same way, people flee their homes in fear of earthy leaders,
    uncertain of what the future may hold.
Those whose lands have been taken from them
    despair at the loss of valuable assets and resources.
 
Lord of hope, we are assured of your provision in this season
    where we expect the Bread of Life.
We are assured that you come to be with those who lack,
    those on the periphery, 
    as we remember you being born in a manger.
 
We are assured that your hand is outstretched to all,
    first to the poor and then to the rich,
    as shepherds and then magi came to the place of your birth.
Incarnate in hopeless situations for us, your people, we pray.
Amen.
 
complied by Claudio Carvalhaes, professor of worship in New York City
 
________________________
 

After the wise men were gone, 
    an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. 
“Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. 
“Stay there until I tell you to return, 
    because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”

That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother, 
    and they stayed there until Herod’s death. 
This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: 
    “I called my Son out of Egypt.”

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