Daily Common Prayer
As we move through lent this year we invite you to a practice of prayer and scripture that will connect you with God and to other past and present. For more info on the Book of Common Prayer check out the introduction at the end of this post.
March 4, 2015
Be not far from me, O Lord: for you are my strength and my help.
Psalm 22: 1 – 6
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?: and are so far from my cry and from the words of my distress? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer: by night as well, but I find no rest. Yet you are the Holy One: enthroned upon the praises of Israel. Our forefathers put their trust in you: they trusted, and you delivered them. They cried out to you and were delivered: they trusted in you and were not put to shame. But as for me, I am a worm and no man: scorned by all and despised by the people.
Be not far from me, O Lord: for you are my strength and my help.
Thirteenth-century mystic Gertrude of Helfta prayed, “Inscribe with your precious blood, most merciful Lord, your wounds on my heart, that I may read in them both your sufferings and your love.”
Prayers for Others
Our Father
Keep us from self-pity, Lord, and stir us to rise each morning expecting to encounter you and be caught up in your work. Amen.
To practice the whole Daily Common Prayer, you can click here (it includes daily scripture, prayers and reflections)
Introduction to the Book of Common Prayer
Christians have been singing and praying and worshiping together for thousands of years. We can sometimes forget that and view our worship, our prayers as something we do on our own…private.
This year during the Lent season, we want to dive into an exciting, new (for us!) practice…of praying prayers with people around the world, from diverse places, traditions, denominations. We’re going to do this from what is called “The Common Prayer” (www.commonprayer.net), a book with prayers and scriptures for every day, called a “liturgy”.
Liturgy (literally means “the work of the people”) is a communal response to the sacred. Its something we do together, as a way to ground ourselves TOGETHER in Christ.
Every day you will have the chance to join people…in all parts of the world, praying some of these very same prayers. There is strength in numbers, and there is a powerful sense of unity that can come as people from diverse places and circumstances pray together, even though they have never met, and don’t even speak the same language.
We also want to encourage you to do this in community….whenever possible.
So maybe you want to find a common time in your home to pray these prayers and read these scriptures together, or include them at the beginning of your cell gatherings…to remind us that we are NOT on this faith journey alone, but are meant to live our lives in community.