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 25, 2015
The Annunciation On March 25 we remember the special role that Mary plays in the redemption of the world and celebrate the example she is to each of us as disciples of Jesus. When the angel Gabriel visited Mary, she was a teenager in occupied Palestine, as anonymous and apparently insignificant as the billions of people who live and die today in the slums of megacities. But the angel of the Lord called Mary by name and proclaimed that she would carry inside her womb God in flesh. It is a miracle we remember even as we put it into practice: however humble our circumstances, God proposes to live in and through our bodies. As a sign to remind us that anything is possible with our God, we remember that Mary conceived Jesus without the help of any man.
Here am I, the servant of the Lord: let it be to me according to your will.
Psalm 119: 141– 44
I am small and of little account: yet I do not forget your commandments. Your justice is an everlasting justice: and your law is the truth. Trouble and distress have come upon me: yet your commandments are my delight. The righteousness of your decrees is everlasting: grant me understanding, that I may live.
Here am I, the servant of the Lord: let it be to me according to your will.
Twentieth-century Trappist and spiritual writer Thomas Merton said, “The Christian life — and especially the contemplative life — is a continual discovery of Christ in new and unexpected places.”
Prayers for Others
Our Father
Thank you, Lord, for Mary’s witness to joyful obedience, courageous faith, and the merciful truth that you dwell among those the world would forget. 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.