Morning Prayer Tuesday, 7 September 2021
LIKE THEY SAY
by Robert Creeley
Underneath the tree on some
soft grass I sat, I
watched two happy
woodpeckers be
disturbed by my presence. And
why not, I thought to
myself, why
not.
Good morning and welcome to Morning Prayer
The night has passed, and the day lies open before us;
let us pray with one heart and mind.
Silence is kept.
As we rejoice in the gift of this new day,
so may the light of your presence, O God,
set our hearts on fire with love for you;
now and for ever.
Amen.
Breathe in
Breathe out
Be still…
I arise today,
embraced in the arms
of God the Father,
empowered by the strength
of God the Spirit,
immersed in the love
of God the Son.
I arise today
in the company
of the Trinity,
Father, Spirit and Son.
I arise today
Amen
Presence
Dear Jesus, today I call on you in a special way.
Mostly I come asking for favours.
Today I’d like just to be in Your presence.
Let my heart respond to Your Love.
Freedom
I ask for the grace
to let go of my own concerns
and be open to what God is asking of me,
to let myself be guided and formed by my loving Creator.
Consciousness
Lord, grant that I may always desire
to spend time in your presence.
May I not forget your goodness to me.
Guide me to share your blessings with others.
THE WORD OF GOD
John 1:45-51
Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
WORDS OF WISDOM
To be loved by Jesus enlarges our heart capacity. To be loved by the Christ enlarges our mental capacity. We need both a Jesus and a Christ, in my opinion, to get the full picture. A truly transformative God—for both the individual and history—needs to be experienced as both personal and universal. Nothing less will fully work. If the overly personal (even sentimental) Jesus has shown itself to have severe limitations and problems, it is because this Jesus was not also universal. We lost the cosmic when we made him cozy. History has clearly shown that worship of Jesus without worship of Christ invariably becomes a time-and culture-bound religion, often ethnic or even, in the West, implicitly racist, which excludes much of humanity from God’s embrace.
I fully believe, however, that there has never been a single soul who was not possessed by the Christ, even in the ages before Jesus. Why would we want our religion, or our God, to be any smaller?
For those of us who have felt angered or wounded or excluded by the message of Jesus or Christ as we have heard it, I hope we sense an opening here—an affirmation, a welcome that we may have despaired of ever hearing. You are a child of God, and always will be, even when you don’t believe it.
I opened my book The Universal Christ with a lengthy quote from Catholic mystic and artist Caryll Houselander [1901–1954]. She describes riding the subway and seeing Christ permeating and radiating from all her fellow passengers:
Quite suddenly I saw with my mind, but as vividly as a wonderful picture, Christ in them all. But I saw more than that; not only was Christ in every one of them, living in them, dying in them, rejoicing in them, sorrowing in them—but because He was in them, and because they were here, the whole world was here too . . . all those people who had lived in the past, and all those yet to come.
I came out into the street and walked for a long time in the crowds. It was the same here, on every side, in every passer-by, everywhere—Christ. [1]
This is why I can see Christ in my dog Opie, the sky, and all creatures, and it’s why we can experience God’s unadulterated care for us in our garden or kitchen, our husband or wife or child, an ordinary beetle, a fish in the darkest sea that no human eye will ever observe, and even in those who do not like us, and those who are not like us.
This is the illuminating light that enlightens all things, making it possible for us to see things in their fullness. When Christ calls himself the “Light of the World” (John 8:12), he is not telling us to look just at him, but to look out at life with his all-merciful eyes. We see him so we can see like him, and with the same infinite compassion.
Fr Richard Rohr
Copyright © 2021 by CAC. Used by permission of CAC. All rights reserved worldwide.
https://cac.org/expanding-our-capacity-to-love-2021-08-25/
PRAYERS & 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.
May God the Father
prepare your journey,
Jesus the Son
guide your footsteps,
The Spirit of Life
strengthen your body,
The Three in One
watch over you,
on every road
that you may follow.
Amen
THE BLESSING
May your day be blessed
by moments of quietness,
light in your darkness,
strength in your weakness,
grace in your meekness,
joy in your gladness,
peace in your stillness.
May your day be blessed
AMEN
Thank you for join us…have a wonderful day!
Revd. Ernesto Lozada-Uzuriaga
