Evening Prayer Tuesday, 10 November 2020
Simple joys are holy
By Donovan Leitch
If you want your dream to be
Take your time, go slowly
Do few things but do them well
Heartfelt work grows purely
If you want to live life free
Take your, time go slowly
Do few things but do them well
Heartfelt work grows purely
Day by day, stone by stone
Build your secret slowly
Day by day, you’ll grow too
You’ll know heaven’s glory
If you want to live life free
Take your time go slowly
If you want your dream to be
Take your time, go slowly
Good evening and welcome to Evening Prayer
That this evening may be holy, good and peaceful,
let us pray with one heart and mind.
Silence is kept.
As our evening prayer rises before you, O God,
so may your mercy come down upon us
to cleanse our hearts
and set us free to sing your praise
now and for ever. Amen
Breathe in
Breathe out
Be still…
Come, O Spirit of God,
and make within us your dwelling place and home.
May our darkness be dispelled by your light,
and our troubles calmed by your peace;
may all evil be redeemed by your love,
all pain transformed through the suffering of Christ,
and all dying glorified in his risen life.
Amen.
Presence
Lord, when I am feeling lonely,
remind me of your promise,
“You are never alone,
I am with you always,
Yes, to the end of time”.
Freedom
Lord, you created me to live in freedom.
May your Holy Spirit guide me to follow you freely.
Instil in my heart a desire
To know and love you more each day.
Consciousness
To be conscious about something is to be aware of it.
Dear Lord help me to remember that You gave me life.
Thank you for the gift of life. Teach me to slow down,
to be still and enjoy the pleasures created for me.
To be aware of the beauty that surrounds me.
The marvel of mountains, the calmness of lakes,
the fragility of a flower petal.
I need to remember that all these things come from you.
THE WORD OF GOD
Luke 17:11-19
On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the
region between Samaria and Galilee.
Keeping their distance, they called out, saying,
“Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them,
“Go and show yourselves to the priests.”
And as they went, they were made clean.
Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed,
turned back, praising God with a loud voice.
He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him.
And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked,
“Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?
Was none of them found to return and give
praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him,
“Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
WORDS OF WISDOM
Behold, there are only three things that will last: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love. —1 Corinthians 13:13
To talk about love is to talk about what Plato calls “holy madness.” Jung even refused to include love in any of his classic categories—it finally defied his psychological descriptions. Perhaps that is why love has so many false meanings in our minds and emotions. Perhaps that is why Jesus never defined love, but instead made it a command. We must love, each of us absolutely must enter into this unnamable mystery if we are to know God and know our own self!
Love alone is sufficient unto itself. It is its own end, its own merit, its own satisfaction. It seeks no cause beyond itself and needs no fruit outside of itself. Its fruit is its use. Love is our deepest identity and what we are created in and for. To love someone “in God” is to love them for their own sake and not for what they do for us. Only a transformed consciousness sees another person as another self, as one who is also loved by Christ, and not as an object separate from ourselves on which we generously bestow favors. If we have not yet loved or if love wears us out, is it partly because other people are seen as tasks or commitments or threats, instead of as extensions of our own suffering and loneliness? Are they not in truth extensions of the suffering and loneliness of God?
When we live out of this truth of love, instead of the lie and human emotion of fear, we will at last begin to live. Love is always letting go of a fear. In the world of modern psychologizing, we have become very proficient at justifying our fears and avoiding simple love. The world will always teach us fear. Jesus will always command us to love. And when we seek the spiritual good of another, we at last forget our fears and ourselves.
Divine love or charity has nothing to do with feelings of “liking” one another. One key biblical word for love, agape, is not based on the myth of romantic love or good feelings about one another. It is a love grounded in God that allows us to honestly desire and seek the other’s spiritual growth. This faith, this love, this Holy Mystery—of which we are only a small part—can only be awakened and absorbed by the silent gaze of prayer. Those who contemplate who they are in God’s ecstatic love will be transformed as they look and listen and find and share. This God, like a Seductress, does not allow Herself to be known apart from love. We know God by loving God. And I think that it is actually more important to know that we love God than to know that God loves us, although the two movements are finally the same.
Fr Richard Rohr
https://cac.org/love-is-our-deepest-identity-2020-11-10/
Copyright © 2018 by CAC. Used by permission of CAC. All rights reserved worldwide.
PRAYERS AND INTERCESSIONS
We pray for the world…
Lord, in your mercy
hear our prayer.
We pray for the universal church of Christ…
Lord, in your mercy
hear our prayer.
We pray for one another and all those known to us…
Lord, in your mercy
hear our prayer.
The Lord’s Prayer
As our Saviour taught us, so we pray
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and for ever.
Amen.
Final Prayer
Abide with us, Lord, for it is evening,
and day is drawing to a close.
Abide with us and with
your whole Church,
in the evening of the day,
in the evening of life,
in the evening of the world;
abide with us and with all
your faithful ones, O Lord,
in time and in eternity.
Amen.
THE BLESSING
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNnXKzjA-E8
Revd. Ernesto Lozada-Uzuriaga
