Praying at Home: Friday 19 June 2020
Welcome to PrayingAtHome.com
Here you can find some resources for each day.
We hope these will help you stay in touch with the Church
and to sustain you on your journey through life.
Opening to the Word
You can spend a few moments in silence,
focussing on your breathing
to become more mindful of the present moment
and to open yourself more fully
to God’s presence within you.
In the name of the living God,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Short scripture passage
Do not hide your face from your servant,
for I am in distress—make haste to answer me.Ne avertas faciem tuam a puero tuo;
quoniam tribulor, velociter exaudi me.
Psalm 68 (69):17
The Liturgy of the Word *
Here are today’s Bible readings.
You can read just one, or all of them if you have time.
Short Reflection
Do not hide your face from your servant,
for I am in distress—make haste to answer me.
Jeremiah has been denounced as a prophet; his adversaries are out to get him.
To put it mildly, he is perplexed and angry, even though he has interceded to God for the people, that God might not be angry with them.
So he denounces them:
He calls down all sorts of terror: pestilence, war, famine.
He wants them to see that they can’t get away with their evil-doing.
Do not forgive their iniquity,
do not blot out their sin from your sight.Let them be tripped up before you;
deal with them while you are angry.
Jeremiah 18:23
Perhaps we can identify with Jeremiah.
There are times when we feel angry,
angry at injustice,
angry at exceptionalism “the rules don’t apply to me”,
angry at the way some people can get away with wrong-doing with apparently no comeback, protected by powerful friends.
We know from psychology that suppressing feelings is no solution, so how do we deal with this anger?
As a passion, anger creates energy, energy that can be used against someone else, or against ourselves. But there is a third way.
Brother Roger, founder of the Taizé Community in France, spent hours listening to young people bringing their concerns and desires. In 1968, at the time of the student demonstrations in Paris, he reflected on what these young people had told him.
The violence of peacemakers!
It is creative violence, revolutionizing people and, by the challenge it presents, obliging them to make a stand.
It has the power to communicate.
It can be recognised by certain signs.First, it is like a living protest in the face of hardened Christian consciences, which accommodate themselves to hatred or to injustice.
What a challenge when even one Christian becomes a living hope in the midst of a world of injustice, segregation and starvation!
Emptied of all hatred, his presence is constructive; it creates.
This challenge is a blaze of love, it is a violence inhabited by a Presence.
When someone’s life is ablaze in this way, he kindles a fire on the earth.
Violent for Peace
(Oxford, 1981), p. 86
Prayer Suggestions
We pray for those whose hearts are burning for justice.
We pray for the apathetic, those who have learned simply not to care.
We pray for those who have been misled by stronger powers,
who feel that their way of life is under threat
and who resort to thuggery and violence in their frustration.
We weep for them.
We pray that our anger may be purged of self-interest and hatred.
We pray for our enemies.
And as the pandemic continues,
we pray for our politicians seeking to guide a path of safety for us,
we pray for those who work in our countries’ National Health Services,
for essential workers,
for those in care homes,
for us all.
Music for reflection *
The Lord’s Prayer
We can say the Lord’s Prayer in any language or version we choose.
Here it is, in English, Latin and French.
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.
Pater noster, qui es in cælis;
sanctificatur nomen tuum:
adveniat regnum tuum;
fiat voluntas tua,
sicut in cælo, et in terra.
Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie:
et dimitte nobis debita nostra,
sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris:
et ne nos inducas in tentationem:
sed libera nos a malo.
Quia tuum est regnum,
et potestas, et gloria, in saecula.
Amen.
Notre Père qui es aux cieux,
que ton nom soit sanctifié.
Que ton règne vienne.
Que ta volonté soit faite sur la terre comme au ciel.
Donne-nous aujourd’hui notre pain de ce jour.
Pardonne-nous nos offences
comme nous pardonnons aussi
à ceux qui nous ont offensés.
Et ne nous soumets pas à la tentation,
mais délivre-nous du mal.
Car c’est à toi qu’appartiennent le règne,
la puissance et la gloire
pour les siècles des siècles. Amen.
Concluding prayer
Risen Christ,
you knew the pain of anger and suffering
and redeemed it
through your death on the cross,
taking the world’s sin in your arms.
Transform us, we pray.
Amen.
* You can find more organ music from Holy Trinity Church, Stirling
on Alistair Warwick‘s website and on SoundCloud
There are several books by Brother Roger of the Taizé Community from many booksellers (Amazon link)
In these strange times, we are called to trust
Other worship resources
Acknowledgements
* Beginning with the week after Pentecost, the lectionary for weekdays is taken from the Vanderbilt Divinity Library (complementary readings).
In that lectionary, the readings are in the following order: Old Testament reading, Psalm, New Testament reading; we have changed the order to the more usual OT, Psalm and NT.
The Bible texts of the Old Testament, Epistle and Gospel lessons are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993, 1995 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Images, unless otherwise stated, are from lockdown, by Alistair Warwick.
Music engraved by The Art of Music.
You can buy ‘The Complete Chronicles of Narnia’ at Amazon.
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