Jesus, touch our eyes

March 21, 2024April 2, 2024 / Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

Andrey Mironov, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Lord Jesus, touch our eyes,
as you did those of the blind;
then we shall see
in things that are visible
those things which are invisible.

Lord Jesus, open our ears,
heal our wounds and purify our lives,
as you did those who came to you;
then we shall hear and perceive what is true
amidst the sounds of the world,
and find wholeness in ourselves.

after Origen, 185—254, Alexandrian Theologian

The Book of a Thousand Prayers

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Mark 8:22-25

They came to Bethsaida,

and some people brought a blind man

and begged Jesus to touch him.

He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village.

When he had spit on the man’s eyes

and put his hands on him, Jesus asked,

“Do you see anything?”
He looked up and said,

“I see people; they look like trees walking around.”
Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes.

Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored,

and he saw everything clearly.

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Have mercy on my darkness, my ashes

March 15, 2024March 14, 2024 / Eric Mathews / 2 Comments

photo by Elvis Bekmanis on Unsplash

Lord, have mercy.

Have mercy on my darkness, my weakness, my confusion.

Have mercy on my infidelity, my cowardice, my turning about in circles,

my wandering, my evasions.

I do not ask anything but such mercy, always, in everything, mercy.

My life here at Gethsemani – a little solidity and very much ashes.

Almost everything is ashes.

What I have prized most is ashes.

What I have attended to least is, perhaps, a little solid.

Lord have mercy.

Guide me, make me want again to be holy,

to be a man of God even though in desperateness and confusion.

I do not necessarily ask for clarity, a plain way,

but only to go according to Your love,

to follow your mercy, to trust in Your mercy.

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

Dialogues with Silence

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Psalm 30:8-12

To you, Lord, I called;
to the Lord I cried for mercy:
“What is gained if I am silenced,
if I go down to the pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it proclaim your faithfulness?
Hear, Lord, and be merciful to me;
Lord, be my help.”

You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent.
Lord my God, I will praise you forever.

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You have loved us first

January 25, 2024January 24, 2024 / Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

God is Love, by Wingchi Poon, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Father in Heaven!

You have loved us first, help us never to forget that You are love,

so that this sure conviction might triumph in our hearts

over the seduction of the world,

over the inquietude of the soul,

over the anxiety for the future,

over the fright of the past,

over the distress of the moment.

But grant also that this conviction might discipline out soul

so that our heart might remain faithful and sincere

in the love which we bear to all those whom

You have commanded us to love

as we love ourselves.

You have loved us first, O God, alas!

We speak of it in terms of history

as if You have only loved us first but a single time,

rather than that without ceasing You have loved us first in all things

and every day and our whole life through.

When we wake up in the morning and turn our soul toward You –

You are the first – You have loved us first;

If I rise at dawn and the same second turn my soul toward You in prayer,

You are ahead of me, You have loved me first.

When I withdraw from the distractions of the day and turn my soul toward You,

You are the first and thus forever.

And yet we always speak ungratefully

as if You have loved us first only once.

Soren Kierkegaard, 1813-1855, Danish philosopher and theologian

Encyclopedia of Prayer and Praise

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1 John 4:9-12

God showed how much he loved us

by sending his one and only Son into the world

so that we might have eternal life through him.

This is real love—not that we loved God,

but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.

No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other,

God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

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Decorate our homes with your goodness

November 10, 2023November 9, 2023 / Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

Highland Hospitality, John Frederick Lewis, via Wikimedia Commons

Lord, we want to invite you into our homes.

So we decorate them with giving to the needy, with prayers, with requests,

and with vigils that focus increasingly on the needs of others.

There are the decorations of Christ the King.

We are not ashamed then of having a humble house,

if it has this kind of furniture.

But the decorations that come from unstoppable greed

are the enemy of Christ.

May those of us who are rich not pride ourselves

on having an expensive home.

Rather let us hide our faces, turn away from greed,

and seek the other kind of decoration.

In so doing let us receive Christ in this life on earth,

and there enjoy the eternal home,

by the grace and love you have for us in Jesus Christ,

to whom be glory and might, world without end, amen.

John Chrysostom, c.349-407, Archbishop of Constantinople

Fount of Heaven Prayers of the Early Church

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Luke 14:12-14

He said also to the man who had invited him,

“When you give a dinner or a banquet,

do not invite your friends or your brothers

or your relatives or rich neighbors,

lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid.

But when you give a feast, invite the poor,

the crippled, the lame, the blind,

and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.

For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

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a prayer of love

July 19, 2023June 1, 2025 / Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

photo by didin emelu on Unsplash

Gracious Lord,

Your name is love,

in love receive my prayer.

My sins are more than the wide sea’s sand,

but where sin abounds, there is grace more abundant.

Look to the cross of the your beloved Son,

and view the preciousness of his atoning blood;

Listen to his never-failing intercession,

and whisper to my heart, ‘Your sins are forgiven,

be of good cheer, lie down in peace.’

Grace cataracts from heaven and flows for ever,

and mercy never wearies in bestowing benefits.

Grant me more and more to prize the privilege of prayer,

to come to you as a sin-soiled sinner,

to find pardon in you,

to converse with you;

to know you in prayer as

the path in which my feet tread,

the latch upon the door of my lips,

the light that shines through my eyes,

the music of my ears,

the marrow of my understanding,

the strength of my will,

the power of my affection,

the sweetness of my memory.

May the matter of my prayer be always wise, humble, submissive,

obedient, scriptural, Christ-like.

Give me unwavering faith that supplications are never in vain,

that if I seem not to obtain my petitions

I shall have larger, richer answers,

surpassing all that I ask or think.

Unsought, you have given me the greatest gift,

the person of your Son,

and in him you will give me all I need.

The Valley of Vision, a collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions

slightly updated

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Romans 5:20-21

God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were.

But as people sinned more and more,

God’s wonderful grace became more abundant.

So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death,

now God’s wonderful grace rules instead,

giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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desiring you with my whole heart

February 21, 2023February 21, 2023 / Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

image

Give me grace, O my Father,

to be utterly ashamed of my own reluctance.

Rouse me from sloth and coldness,

and make me desire you with my whole heart.

Teach me to love

meditation, sacred reading and prayer.

Teach me to love

that which must engage my mind

for all eternity.

John Henry Newman, 1801-1890, English Catholic priest and poet

The Communion of Saints

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Jeremiah 29:13

You will seek me and find me,

when you seek me with all your heart.

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preparing to pray

November 11, 2022November 10, 2022 / Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

Photo by Olivia Snow on Unsplash

Enable me, O God, to collect and compose my thoughts

before an immediate approach to you in prayer.

May I be careful to have my mind in order

when I take upon myself the honour to speak

to the Sovereign Lord of the universe,

remembering that upon the temper of my soul

depends, in very great measure, my success.

You are infinitely too great to be trifled with,

to wise to be imposed on by a mock devotion,

and abhor a sacrifice without a heart.

Help me to entertain an habitual sense of your perfections,

as an admirable help against cold and formal performances.

Save me from engaging in rash and precipitate prayers

and from abrupt breaking away

to follow business or pleasure

as though I had never prayed.

Susanna Wesley, 1669-1742, mother of John & Charles Wesley, founders of Methodism

The Complete Book of Christian Prayer

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Psalm 145:17-19

The Lord is righteous in all his ways
and kind in all his works.

The Lord is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.
He fulfills the desire of those who fear him;
he also hears their cry and saves them.

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prayer for scrubbing floors

June 24, 2022June 23, 2022 / Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

_{Cleaning Lady, Tomicmilos90, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons}

Thank you for the privilege of scrubbing this floor.

Thank you for the health and the strength to do it.

That my back is straight and my hands are whole.

I can push a mop.

I can feel the hard surface under my knees when I kneel.

I can grasp the brush and let my energy flow down into it

as I erase this dirt and make this floor clean.

Lord, thank you for everything that has to do with scrubbing this floor.

Bless the soap and the bucket and the brush and the hands that do it.

Bless the feet that are running in right now to track it.

Those feet are the reason I do it.

That are the living reasons for my kneeling here

– half to do a job, half in prayer.

A floor is a foundation. A family is a foundation.

You are our foundation.

Bless us all, and our newly scrubbed floor.

Marjorie Holmes, 1910–2002, American columnist and author

I’ve Got to Talk to Somebody, God: A Woman’s Conversations with God

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Ephesians 3:14-15

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,

from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named

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Do you weep over my city?

April 8, 2022April 7, 2022 / Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

_{Donegall Street, Belfast / Albert Bridge / Wikimedia Commons}

This is my city, Lord:

I’ve flown over it,

driven around it,

walked through it,

and I love it.

Its concrete chasms, its quiet parks,

its massive buildings and its tiny houses,

its suburbs rich and poor.

But most of all, Lord, its people…

My city, Lord. Your city.

Remember, Lord, there was one city

over which you stood and wept.

Do you weep over this city?

With its hunger, its greed, its cruelty?

Its foolishness and heartbreak?

Lord, I believe you do.

prayer used over Belfast, Northern Ireland

from A Procession of Prayers, edited by John Carden

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Luke 19:41-42

And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying,

“Would that you, even you, had known on this day

the things that make for peace!

But now they are hidden from your eyes.”

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