Morning Prayer Ash Wednesday, 17 February 2021

Good morning to you all on this first day of Lent:
a time of self-examination and testing, until 4 April 2021.
Have you joined one of the Lent courses?
Have you made a promise to yourself to give up any particular food or habit?

Let us look at the Bible readings and pray.

Have mercy on me, O God,
in your great goodness;
according to the abundance of your compassion
blot out my offences.
Wash me thoroughly of my wickedness
and cleanse me from my sin.

For I acknowledge my faults
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight.
So that you are justified in your sentence
and righteous in your judgement.

Turn your face from my sins
and blot our all my misdeeds.

Make me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence
and take not your holy spirit from me.

Psalm 51: 1–4, 9–11

Take away, good Lord, the sin that corrupts us;
give us the sorrow that heals and the joy that praises
and restore by grace you own image within us,
that we may take our place among your people,
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

‘Beware of practising your piety before others to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

‘So whenever you give alms do not sound the trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they will be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your father who sees in secret will reward you.

‘And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Father, who is in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret will reward you.’

Matthew 6: 1–4, 16–21

Definitely a Lent theme about both giving up and giving out in those readings.
Last Sunday we thought about the Transfiguration
with all of the majesty of God on the mountain and returning to the everyday.
We need our prayers and our giving to our communities to be done
without fuss or display but humbly and with devotion this Lent.

Let us pray for the Church using the prayer from our Lent groups
looking at the gospel record of our Lord in the wilderness testing out his mission.

God who calls us on our journey, as we remember Jesus’ time in the wilderness,
help us to cast aside those things that get in the way of hearing your word.
Help us to seek you in the places of bounteous beauty and of the barren bleakness.
Help us to seek you in the faces of friends and in the smiles of strangers.
Help our devotion to be made real in the actions of our lives.
When we have looked deep into our own hearts and struggled with who we are,
send angels to minister to us and draw us out of our own wilderness
to fulfil our calling to serve you in Christ’s name.

Amen

Michaela Youngson

Let us pray for the world facing this pandemic.
In our country we are seeing signs that the level of infections and transmission
of the Covid virus is abating and there are calls for the restrictions on movement to be removed. Most countries are still suffering from an increase in the numbers of people
suffering and dying from this virus infection.
We still have to deal with divisions within our societies which, in places, becomes open conflict. Yemen and Myanmar are just two of such places.
This week Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft,
who now works for the Bill & Melinda Charitable Foundation,
helping less developed societies to have the benefits of modern science and technology,
commented on the problems of global warming.
He said dealing with the Covid pandemic was a little problem
compared with a gigantic one of changing how we currently use our environment.

We seek your forgiveness for our indifference
to the numerous signs of your presence around us,
for our inability to value the skies and the earth as our only home,
for our inability to make the connections between our lives
and the earth from where we emerge and to which we shall proceed.
We pray for a profound change in the hearts of all men and women
that we may stop the destruction of the ecological balance,
the pollution of our skies and water,
the decimation of our forests and the accompanying impoverishment of the human spirit.
Lord, you have not created this world in vain; help us to honour and heal it.

Amen

Don’t forget the Zoom Holy Communion service at 7.00 pm this evening.

Finally, let us finish with the Blessing from our Lent course:

Generous God, bless each one of us.
Bless those we love.
Bless the homes we return to.
Send us out in the power of your Spirit
that we might grow deeper in wisdom,
more passionate in faith and more committed in our loving
for the sake of Jesus Christ.

Amen

Michaela Youngson