Morning Prayer Friday, 12 March 2021
Good morning, Friends of Christ the Cornerstone!
Stretch and breathe deeply of the early air,
fling open the curtains on our still-damp world and praise God for this gift of a fresh new day!
Preserving God, who holds us close in the darkness of night, stay close to us in all we undertake today.
Give us steady hearts and open minds to approach today as an opportunity to meet you
in every task, round every corner, in every scrap of springtime bird song.
We look forward to the promise on this new day immersed in you.
Amen
We’re now halfway through Lent, the wilderness season of the Christian church,
a time of preparation for Holy Week, Good Friday and Easter.
This weekend is Refreshment Sunday, Mothering Sunday:
a day to pause inward thoughts and draw upon the church family that surrounds us.
Early tradition holds the day as one where Christians visit the church of their baptism
to refresh their faithfulness.
It was and is a time to give thanks for the mothers who nurtured that faith
as Mary would have done with Jesus
Having begun this week in celebration of women and their duties and achievements,
it’s fitting at the end of the week to celebrate the nature of nurture personified in women in motherhood
and magnified through the family of our Cornerstone Congregation – our mother church.
God of nurture, we thank you for the love and security of our church family,
always open to new people, always enfolding us all in common concern and everyday love.
We lift to you members of our family facing hard times, impossible choices, facing deep sickness or death.
Bless them with your refreshment: with courage rebooted and creativity recharged;
with imagination expanded and deep peace restored; with a calm spirit at the approaching end.
Grant to our children eagerness to explore the world
and a yearning for knowledge as they return to school in reality.
Help us all to nurture their faith and support their parents
to help them grow up in safety, security and an abundance of love.
Amen
The Bible readings for Refreshment Sunday, the fourth in Lent,
are among the most beautiful in our traditions.
They include verses around John 3: 16, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…
and Paul’s declaration of grace in Ephesians 2:
God is rich in mercy and because of his great love for us, he brought us to life with Christ when we were dead through sins … We are God’s handiwork, created for a life of good deeds.
Ephesians 2: 4b–5a, 10a
From this midpoint, the season of Lent becomes more intense, more constrained, more focused on Jesus’ fulfilment of the Great Redemption Plan.
Jesus, the disciples and we, along with faithful people who came before us and will follow after,
hold tightly to those messages of constant, forgiving love.
They are our continuous refreshment, our unending gift, not dressed in ribbons or flowers.
It’s just there, all around us and embedded deep within.
God of Love, we pray for our community and the wider world:
Support the people who keep our society afloat through commerce, duty and care.
Help the powerful bring a mother’s wisdom to their decision-making so that everyone may prosper well.
Open the eyes of all people, that we may treat our mother earth with more respect and care,
and put aside waste and exploitation.
Help us cherish our world and all her people
so we may all look forward to a future of health and security lived out in peace.
Amen
