Morning Prayer Wednesday, 6 May 2020
Good morning Cornerstone friends.
Welcome to our morning gathering together.
Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens
and your faithfulness to the clouds.
Your righteousness stands like the strong mountains,
your justice like the great deep;
you, Lord, shall save both man and beast.
How precious is your loving mercy, O God!
All mortal flesh shall take refuge
under the shadow of your wings.
They shall be satisfied with the abundance of your house;
they shall drink from the river of your delights.
For with you is the well of life
and in your light shall we see light.
Psalm 36: 5–9 (Daily Prayer Common Worship)
O God, the well of life, make us bright with wisdom,
that we may be lightened with the knowledge of your glory
in the face of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
The psalms that have been included in our prayers since Sunday seem to me to share two themes:
firstly that of comfort and refuge, perhaps we could use a more current word, ‘protection’;
secondly that of abundance (my cup shall be full; abundance of your house).
So, with that in mind, we can move on from here.
Protection has come to the fore in our news bulletins: lack of protective clothing for those tending the very sick and frail, keeping away from other people ‘for our own protection’ on the part of we who are ‘isolated’, balancing the different elements of data to decide how to come out of lockdown and ‘protect the economy’.
We have not experienced such uncertainty for a long time, perhaps going back to the middle of the last century, and on Friday this week we will mark the declaration of the end of war in Europe after World War Two. Although there were still some months of war in Asia and the atomic bomb yet to come!
Today we have news that we seem to be overcoming Covid 19, but still do not know quite how the current difficulties will end.
So we still need to pray for those who are suffering from this disease and those who care for them. Some of these carers are Christian, but not all. Some will have no faith and some are Muslim. They will be working while fasting in daylight hours. Imagine wearing a hijab underneath full personal protection suit and going a whole day without food!
How precious is your loving mercy, O God
You are the well of life.
Give strength to all who care for the sick and those who
cannot care for themselves.
Let them not flag this day, but keep a feeling of great joy
in showing kindness and mercy in your name
Amen
And this week, in the church’s calendar, we remember Julian of Norwich, from over 650 years ago.
Not a man, as you might think from the name, but a woman, an anchoress, someone who had a vocation for isolation from society. She was very ill in 1373 and had a great vision which she
recorded in writing, Revelations of Divine Love, the earliest writings of a woman in the English language.
She is remembered particularly for writing these words:
… all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.
Many of us are in isolation and may feel a bit like anchorites or anchoresses.
These times of prayer do give us opportunity to be closer to God and to strengthen our spiritual life.
But we are not called to live alone. We are called to be a community at one with each other.
We live in a world where we are in touch with people all over the world. And if we do not have a dispersed family, we rely on unknown people all over the world for our needs. Did you have tea or coffee this morning? Are you wearing cotton?
Compared with most of the world, we in the United Kingdom have an abundance for our needs.
Even the poorest in our society has more than many people in less developed counties that supply our tea, coffee and clothing.
I put a reminder about Christian Aid Week from 9 May.
I am adding to the postings today a short article tucked away in my newspaper on Monday. It is about charities in general. Charities are facing very big problems at present as their usual means of fundraising rely on us all getting together: fun runs, fetes, sporting events, and many volunteers are in isolation.
Find time to be generous and show your thanks. If not Christian Aid, then some other cause dear to your heart.
Gracious God, we thank you for our preservation on this new day
for the opportunities we have to show your love to one another.
Keep us ever mindful that we rely on the diligence of
thousands of unknown people for all of our needs this day.
Tell us what each of us can do to show your love today
for those, unknown to us, whose work meets all of our needs.
Amen
The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
and the love of God
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
be with us all evermore.
Amen
The love of our Cornerstone fellowship go with you if you are going
and stay with you if you are staying.
Have you booked a slot in the coffee together groups with Ernesto? Keep safe, whatever you do today.
