Evening Prayer Friday, 12 June 2020

For everything has its season
and a time for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born, a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to harvest.

A time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance.

A time to embrace and a time to abstain from embracing.

A time for silence …

Ecclesiastes 3: 1–6 (in part)

We have entered what the church calls Ordinary Time:
a time to re-visit well-remembered scripture and explore new truths;
a time to approach the Lord in worship and to seek enlightenment in prayer.
As we close this first week of Trinity,
we pray at evening in the comfort of gentle summer rain that replenishes the earth,
cleans the air and reminds us of our Baptism.

We give thanks for the beauty of the earth,
for the growing and the blooming,
for the fruiting in bursting abundance.
We give thanks for rest and refreshment,
for the care of friends and the fellowship of Cornerstone at the close of another week.
We give thanks for the approaching silence of night.

We pray in faith:

Lord of the earth, guide us through all the seasons of our lives.

We lift to you, Lord, your children in need of blessing:
The people who serve us in everyday matters
in warehouses and shops, in vans and lorries, in reception and surgery.

Protect them and keep them safe.

We lift to you, Lord, your children in need of relief,
the people suffering the effects of Covid-19:
People who are sick and mourning loss through sickness,
people in health and care services, working in fear of sickness;
people made lonely to protect from sickness.

Soothe them all, remove their pain, grant them peace.

We lift to you Lord your children who demonstrate for our attention:
those who have waited too long for their worth to be recognised;
those whose experience of racism and discrimination has been so easy to ignore.
Open our ears to those voices, our hearts to their pleas.
Help us come together in common cause to forge the next chapter of our common life.
With eyes on the future, let us understand the legacy of the past.

May our time of sorrow turn to a time to dance.

Lord, bless us all

As we settle for the night, it is time to wind down for sleep.
Better to count blessings rather than sheep.

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us and not we ourselves;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him and praise his name,
for the Lord is good and his love is everlasting,
his faithfulness endures forever.

Psalm 100

To the sound of gentle cleansing rain, we trust in the gifts of refreshing sleep,
safe in the hands of our loving, living God.

Amen

Cheryl Montgomery