Opening Prayer
You are the God who answered me in the day of my distress and have been with me wherever I have gone. -Genesis 35:3 (silent reflection) Prayer of the Bible “I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols. Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.” -Isaiah 42: 6-9 (Free expression of praise and thanksgiving to God) Confession of Sin Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord! O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! If you O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness. -Psalm 130:1-4 (Time of silence for confession of sin) The Words of Jesus No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.” -Mark 2:21-22 (Think deeply on these life-giving words of Jesus) Prayers for Ourselves and Others For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer -I Peter 3:12 (Time to bring before God our own needs and the needs of others) Closing Prayer Lord our God and our Father, we thank you for all the light you let shine on earth to gladden our hearts. Your light shows us how to live in your creation with open eyes and open hearts, accepting in a childlike way all the good gifts from your hand. How much good you send to many sorrowful hearts, and how much strengthening to those in weakness, poverty, and sickness! Grant that we may recognize what comes from you, that we are not cast down in spirit but mount up again and again on wings like eagles. May we learn to say at all times, "Through how much need has not our merciful God spread out his wings to protect us!" Amen. -Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt (1842-1919) |