Evening Prayer Monday, 14 September 2020
Your love comes to me
in the silence,
ordinary.
Like a child’s treasure
I turn it over
in the nook of my hand,
warming its smooth
heaviness.A thought of You,
stony,
clearly defined,drops as though
down a deep
well,is lost
momentarily,then turns up
a certainty in the heart.By Cathy Hutcheon
Good evening and welcome to Evening Prayer
The Lord almighty grant us a quiet night and a perfect end.
Amen.
Our help is in the name of the Lord
who made heaven and earth
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.
Presence
The more we call on the Lord
the more we can feel his Presence.
Day by day he draws us closer
to his loving heart.
Freedom
There are very few people
who realise what God would make of them
if they abandoned themselves into his hands,
and let themselves be formed by his grace. (Saint Ignatius)
I ask for the grace to trust myself totally to God’s love.
Consciousness
Knowing that God loves me unconditionally,
I look honestly over the last day, its events and my feelings.
Do I have something to be grateful for? Then I give thanks.
Is there something I am sorry for? Then I ask forgiveness.
THE WORD OF GOD
Psalm 145:13b-14
The Lord is faithful in all his words, and gracious in all his deeds.
The Lord upholds all who are falling,
and raises up all who are bowed down.
Leviticus 19:32-33
You shall rise before the aged, and defer to the old;
and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.
When an alien resides with you in your land,
you shall not oppress the alien.
2 Corinthians 13:12-14
Greet one another with a holy kiss.
All the saints greet you.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God, and the communion of
the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
WORDS OF WISDOM
The genius of Jesus’ ministry is that he embraces tragedy, suffering, pain, betrayal, and death itself to bring us to God. There are no dead ends. Everything can be transmuted, and everything can be used. Everything.
It seems that everybody wants to take easy sides. It’s so consoling for the ego to have an answer; to be sure that my position is the final and only true answer. Yet, as Paul says, on the cross Jesus becomes the sin and the problem. He identifies with the wound, the pain, and the suffering (2 Corinthians 5:21). He does not stand apart from it but enters into it. What a paradox, what a mystery!
Jesus tells Peter, “Peter, you must be sifted like wheat. And once you have recovered, then you, in your turn, can strengthen your companions” (Luke 22:31–32). Until there has been a journey through suffering, I don’t believe that we have true healing authority. We don’t have the ability to lead anybody anyplace new unless we have walked it ourselves to some degree. In general, we can only lead people on the spiritual journey as far as we ourselves have gone. We simply can’t talk about it beyond that. That’s why the best thing we can do for people is to stay on the journey ourselves. We transform people to the degree we have been transformed. When we can somehow be compassion, not just talk about compassion; when we can be healed and not just talk about healing, then we are, as Henri Nouwen said so well, “wounded healers,” but not before.
It always comes through the wounding. What we do when faced with our deepest wounds determines whether there is authentic spirituality at work or not. If we seek to blame other people, accuse, attack, or even explain and make perfect, logical sense out of our wounds, there will be no further spiritual journey. But if, when the wounding happens, we find the grace and the freedom to somehow see that it’s not just a wound, but a sacred wound, then the journey progresses. Then we set out to find ourselves, to find the truth, and to find God.
It’s all about what each of us does with the wound. If we ourselves have never walked through some kind of suffering, whether betrayal, abandonment, rejection, divorce, loss of job, struggles with sexuality, we probably will give people “head” answers. We don’t touch or heal their hearts because our own have not been transformed. I don’t think it’s any accident that in most of Jesus’ healings, he physically touches people. He’s showing that healing cannot be done through the head, through explanations, theories and theologies, or quick, “logical” conclusions. It must somehow be a communication of life and love energy, held even at the cellular level.
Fr Richard Rohr
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.
Silence….
Visit this place, O Lord, we pray,
and drive far from it the snares of the enemy;
may your holy angels dwell with us and guard us in peace,
and may your blessing be always upon us;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
See that you are at peace among yourselves, my children,
and love one another.
Follow the example of the wise and good
and God will comfort you and help you,
both in this world
and in the world which is to come.
+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
THE BLESSINGS
The Blessing (Global Choir) | Live From Elevation Ballantyne | Elevation Worship
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9EK8dAXl6I
Goodnight and God bless…by the grace of God tomorrow will be a better day!
Revd. Ernesto Lozada-Uzuriaga
