“Lord, mold us and form us into the kind of people you want us to be.
Be patient with us when we fall short of what love demands of us.
And give us patience with ourselves.
Catch us in the arms of your grace.”
-Amen.
-Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals
A biscuit saved from breakfast
washed down by two gulps of juice
makes a quick, kitchen Eucharist.
Casserole for a choir bakes in the great glass pan,
noodles and gravy gently bubbling their prayers.
I peer into the oven’s hot, orange mouth,
and my eyeglass lenses cloud over with steam.
Quilt-mittened, I remove the evening’s
hot concoction:
an offering to you of savory incense,
your gift to us of sustenance.
-Paraclete Book of Hospitality
God be in my head and in my understanding.
God be in my eyes and in my looking.
God be in my mouth and in my speaking.
God be in my heart and in my thinking.
God be at my end and at my departing.
-Sarum Book of Hours, 1514
O Lord, my God, what is Thy will for me today?
What task hast Thou before me?
What opportunity hast Thou placed in my way?
Open mine eyes that I may discover Thy Will!
Save me from wasting this new day!
May I turn it into eternal profit!
-Dr. J. H. Jowett
O God, we turn to Thee as little children, wearied with the day, turn home.
We are wearied with the conflict of life, its burdens, its sore defeats, its perplexities, and disappointment,
and sometimes we grow weary with what we call its pleasures and its successes.
We turn to Thee for rest.
Open Thine arms, we pray, that we may rest in Thee;
O take us to Thy heart! Through Jesus Christ our Lord,
Amen.
-Ralph Cushman, Pocket Prayer Book, 1941
O Lord and Master of my life,
grant not unto me a spirit of idleness,
of discouragement, of lust for power,
and of vain speaking.
But bestow upon me, Thy servant,
the spirit of chastity, of meekness, of patience, and of love.
Yea, O Lord and King,
grant that I may perceive my own transgressions,
and judge not my brother,
for blessed art Thou unto ages of ages.
Amen.
-Orthodox Book of Common Prayer
Remember that you are dust
and to dust you shall return.
Turn away from sin
and be faithful to Christ.
Amen.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is error, truth;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in self-forgetting that we find;
And it is in dying to ourselves that we are born to eternal life.
-Amen.
-Saint Francis of Assisi (1182–1226)
Holy Father,
Thy wisdom excites our admiration,
They power fills us with fear,
Thy omnipresence turns every spot of earth into holy ground;
but how shall we thank Thee enough for Thy mercy
which comes down to the lowest part of our need to give us beauty for ashes,
the oil of joy for mourning,
and for the spirit of heaviness a garment of praise?
We bless and magnify Thy mercy,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
-A.W. Tozer: Knowledge of the Holy
peacocks for pilgrims 