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 16, 2015
Twenty-three-year-old American activist Rachel Corrie was killed on this day in 2003. While countless Palestinian people have been killed the way Rachel was, her death marks a key moment symbolizing international concern. She was crushed by a bulldozer in Gaza as she knelt in front of the home of a Palestinian friend and tried to stop the demolition of their house.
Lord God of hosts, hear our prayer: listen, O God of Jacob.
Psalm 84: 8– 12
Behold our defender, O God: and look upon the face of your Anointed. For one day in your courts is better than a thousand in my own room: and to stand at the threshold of the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of the wicked. For the LORD God is both sun and shield: he will give grace and glory; no good thing will the LORD withhold: from those who walk with integrity. O LORD of hosts: happy are they who put their trust in you!
Lord God of hosts, hear our prayer: listen, O God of Jacob.
Nineteenth-century French mystic Therese of Lisieux wrote, “My vocation is love! In the heart of the Church, who is my Mother, I will be love. So I shall be everything and so my dreams will be fulfilled — to make Love loved.”
Prayers for Others
Our Father
Lord God, please keep us balanced between the times you call us apart to be alone with you and the times when we dwell in the midst of others who claim you as Lord, that we might in every circumstance know ourselves in the beloved community of your Trinity. 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.