Celtic prayer

"As this day begins Christ be with us,
Be in our hearts and in our minds,
Be in our souls and in our spirits,
Be in our thoughts and in our desires.
As this day begins Christ walk beside us,
Show us the love only you can give,
Show us the light only you can provide,
Show us the wholeness only you can reveal.
As this day begins Christ surround us,
Circle us with your presence,
Keep protection near and danger far,
Bring us the assurance of your love."
- Celtic prayer

Image courtesy of zole4 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

St. Apollonius' prayer

"O Lord Jesus Christ,

give us a measure of your Spirit

that we may be enabled to obey your teaching:

to pacify anger,

to take part in pity,

to moderate desire,

to increase love,

to put away sorrow,

to cast away vain glory,

not to be vindictive,

not to fear death;

ever entrusting our spirit to the immortal God

who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns

world without end."

- A Prayer of St. Apollonius

Image courtesy of franky242 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Morning prayer

Keep your people, Lord,

in the arms of your embrace.

Shelter them under your wings.

Be their light in darkness,

Be their hope in distress,

Be their calm in anxiety,

Be strength in their weakness

Be their comfort in pain

Be their song in the night

In peace I will go out this day,

for it is you O Lord,

you alone who guides my paths,

your wisdom in my heart.

- Celtic morning prayer

Image courtesy of zole4 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A Celtic prayer of light

As the sun rises, Lord,
Let your Light shine on me :
Destroy the darkness about me,
Scatter the darkness before me,
Disperse the darkness behind me,
Dispel the darkness within me;
Let your Light shine on me.
As the sun rises, Lord,
Let your Light shine on me :
The warmth of your Presence,
The brightness of your Love,
The radiance of your Joy,
The shining of your Hope;
Let your Light shine on me.
As the sun rises, Lord,
Let your Light shine on me :
Your Light to guide,
Your Light to lead,
Your Light to direct,
Your Light to brighten;
Let your Light shine on me.
O Lord Jesus, You said :
“I am the Light of the World”,
Amen. Be it so ! Amen.
- From ‘Celtic Prayers’ in Power Lines by David Adam

 

Photo by myself...

Remind us of Jesus...

"On a day of many responsibilities,
a day of niggling details,
a day of blessed encounters,
remind us of Jesus, who sat at the table.

On a day of rushing here and there,
or sitting too long at a desk,
or juggling home and church,
remind us of Jesus, who sat at the table.

On a day that lasts too long,
with work stretching beyond sunset,
with always one more chore to perform,
remind us of Jesus, who sat at the table.

On a day ending sooner than seems possible,
with dinner to prepare or papers to write,
homework to complete or check or grade,
remind us of Jesus, who sat at the table.

Bless our work and our prayers,
our hearts and our minds,
our bodies and our souls, we pray. Amen."
- A prayer for a busy day

 

Image courtesy of zole4 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Seen on facebook

A friend put this as their facebook status today and I liked it....

Our faith may waiver. Our hope may stumble. But love, the DNA of God himself, will never fail us. It's God's love that renews our faith and our hope in our weakness and times of need. "Come - all who are weary - come into God's love and you will find rest for your soul."

  Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Explaining symbolism

Last weekend we went to our daughter's graduation. It was held in Christopher Wren's Sheldonian theatre in Oxford and lasted for nearly two hours. I only understood a few words and had to keep looking at the translation on the glossy brochure that we had been given. The whole ceremony was in Latin.

All the participants were wearing gowns and mortarboards and had strange names like bedel, proctor, dean and pro-vice-chancellor. The proctors after having announced in Latin the names of the students graduating in groups of ten would immediately walk up and down the hall before calling the students to come forward for the degrees to be conferred. (This walking up and down was symbolic and was supposed to allow the deans to stand and object if they didn't want any students to be awarded degrees!) The students also dressed up – the graduands came in wearing the gowns signifying their status. Daughter arrived in her short “commoner” gown (the lowest of the low) that she had to wear for exams and formal dinners during her time as a student. They then processed out and returned in the new gowns indicating the new status the degree had conferred on them. The students awarded an MA degree knelt in a row in front of the pro-vice chancellor and he tapped each of them in turn on the head with a bible while saying in Latin “in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit.” Though these students had been at the cutting edge of astrophysics and other sciences or working on modern literature they were re-enacting a ceremony in a form that would have been recognisable more than 500 years ago! I was relieved when the vice chancellor said the word “disolvo” to signify the end!

The university staff were used to the ceremonial. They knew the Latin script and when to bow and when to doff their mortarboards. They may well have become used to the strangeness of it all. But I wonder what the three hundred parents, partners and friends of the students made of the whole thing? If you had not read the guide brochure you might have thought you had landed on another planet or on the set of Hogworts for the filming of Harry Potter!

I sometimes wonder what a person who had never been to church in their life would make of some of the things we take for granted. We use words and do things in a symbolic way because we find they mean something to us. We must not expect that everyone will understand why we do all the things we do in the way that we do them. How much time should we spend explaining? Should we aim for a casual worship service with no symbolic acts or ceremonial aspects? More questions to live with.

Affirmation

With the whole church

I affirm that I am made in God's image,

befriended by Christ, empowered by the Spirit.

With people everywhere

I affirm God's goodness at the heart of humanity,

planted more deeply than all that is wrong.

With all creation

I celebrate the miracle and wonder of life,

the unfolding purposes of God,

forever at work in ourselves and the world.

From a liturgy of the Iona community.

Insurrection: To believe is human, to doubt divine

"To believe is human, to doubt divine" is the subtitle of Peter Rollins' new book called Insurrection. In this book Peter Rollins argues that the Christian faith is not primarily concerned with questions regarding life after death but with the possibility of life before death.

I post two quotations from the book. It is high on my list of books that I want to read.

 

"The claim I believe in God is nothing but a lie if it is not manifest in our lives, because one only believes in God in so far as one loves. "


"In the crucifixion we lose the idea of God as the one who justifies our loving engagement with the world by approving of it, but in resurrection we continue to affirm God as we love the world regardless. This is the move that some of the Christain mystics spoke of, a move from the idolotry of doing good for some reason (to get to heaven, to please God, get approval from others), to the act of doing good for no external reward. The former can be described as works based, in that it involves some economic exchange. In the latter we lay down all desire for reward and in doing so experience how love is its own reward. In the very experience of being forsaken by God (crucifixion) we find God in the very affirmation of Life itself (resurrection).
In this new state, the world is affirmed in the deepest and most radical way, not because everything that happens in it is good (indeed, all too often the very opposite is true), but because, in love, we experience creation, in all its brokenness, as wonderful."

Compassion

"The principal of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions and it calls us always to treat all others as we would wish to be treated ourselves."

With these words, Karen Armstrong unveiled the Charter for Compassionon November 9th 2009.  This charter is for people of every faith and those with no faith from around the world. The charter contains the public confession that “we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion."

The Charter for Compassion was devised by Karen Armstrong who has written several books on religion and faith in the contemporary world. She was at one time a Roman Catholic nun before studying at Oxford University and ending up as a teacher. In recent years she has become widely known as a writer and speaker. Her study of the world’s religions revealed very clearly their differences but she identified a common thread that ran through them all. The common thread is compassion.

This dream is not simple or naieve but sums up the aspirations of all thinking and caring people irrespective of their faith. The Charter “impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures and to honor the inviolable sanctity of every single human being treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.”

By early 2012 more than 85,000 people had affirmed the charter online. It has been implemented in various settings. One of the most notable is in a jail in Washington State (USA) where the goal was to decrease violence by 2.5 percent. The project was much more successful than hoped and violence decreased by 100 percent. The creators are evaluating the advantages for the federal government of implementing this program across the country.

Review : Wholeness and the Fruits of the Spirit

Micki reviewed Wholeness and the Fruits of the Spirit
on Amazon.com 

Excellent! April 21, 2012

I've always felt that I seriously fall short in exhibiting the Fruits of the Spirit. Pastor John explains this meaty section of the Bible in a way in which I'd never considered it before. This book lends encouragement and a healthy outlook to those of us who strive to become more like Jesus. 

 

******************

Thank you for your review

John

Let Christ out

Nobody worries about Christ as long as he can be kept shut up in churches. He is quite safe inside. But there is always trouble if you try and let him out.

-- G. A. Studdert Kennedy

Geoffrey A Studdert Kennedy,  (27 June 1883 – 8 March 1929), was Church of England priest and poet. He was nicknamed 'Woodbine Willie' during the first world war for giving Woodbine cigarettes along with spiritual aid to injured and dying soldiers.

After the war he had a parish in London where he bacame a vocal campaigner for Christian Socialism until his death. 

A prayer for today from history

A Prayer of St Jerome (347-420)

O Lord, you have given us your word for a light to shine upon our path; grant us so to meditate on that word, and follow its teaching, that we may find in it the light that shines more and more until the perfect day.