23rd December- Homeless at Christmas

The chief executive of charity Crisis said today:
"In a country of 242,000 millionaires, nothing highlights the stark contrast more than the homeless people we will welcome to our centres this Christmas. This recession has hit the poorest hardest and the British public is not prepared for them to bear the brunt of any public spending cuts."

Prayer
Thank you Lord for the wealth we have been born into
And the homes that give us warmth and shelter
Thank you that are not an aloof God
That you were born into a homeless situation
You know our pain, our struggle.
Please Lord open doors of shelter to those who are cold and without a place to go tonight.
Bless charities such as Crisis, YMCA and Salvation Army who do so much good work with the homeless
Please bring reconciliation, healing and peace this Christmas.
In Jesus. name,
Amen

2nd December- Peace on Earth

Father, you are creator and sustainer of our world, mighty and Lord of all. We ask that you will bring peace in our time. As a Christmas present to those who grieve, to those sending off a child to conflict and those who tremble and quake at night, Lord bring your total and effective peace.
Amen

Sunday prayer

Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, lead thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home, lead thou me on!

John Henry Cardinal Newman

Sunday Prayer

Psalm 8
A psalm of David.


O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
above the heavens.

From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praise
because of your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.

When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honour.

You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:
all flocks and herds,
and the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.

O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Spring Harvest

Today we go to Spring Harvest- I'm assuming everyone who reads this blog knows what that is.
But don't fear, I will endeavour to report back on what happens when I get back.
In the meantime, a prayer:

Lord, I pray that as people set out with expectant hearts today, you will grant them a smooth journey to Skegness.
I ask Lord that you will anoint the speakers and those who you have charged with leading us.
Grant them peace in their hearts I pray.
I ask that you will meet each person of our church group and tell the things they need to hear.
I pray that strong friendships will be formed and current friendships strengthened.
In Jesus name,
Amen

Wordless prayers

From Sacred Space:

Ignatius Loyola spent the best of his energies on teaching people to pray. Before his conversion, his idea of prayer was reciting Our Father's and Hail Mary's. When he started to read the scriptures, he found that God was talking to him, especially through the stories about Jesus. He wrote about it later, "God taught me like a schoolboy." As the years passed, his prayer became more wordless - so does the prayer of many Christians as they mature in their spiritual life. Ignatius had such an appetite for prayer - such heart-wrenching delight in it - that he had to ration himself, because the tears of joy were affecting his sight. God was for him not a word but a touch. One of his friends recalled his going up to the roof of his house at night. "He would sit there quietly, absolutely quietly. He would take off his hat and look up for a long time at the sky...and the tears would begin to flow down his cheeks like a stream, but so quietly and so gently that you heard not a sob nor a sigh nor the least possible movement of his body."

I want to explore wordless prayers

Reflection

I love the Sacred Space site which is run by Irish Jesuits and I link to it in my side bar. I find that the prayers that they have there are really insightful, not necessary speaking into my situation but they just have a weight and wisdom that makes me catch my breath. Here is the thought that they have on the site, leading into the prayer of the day. I liked it, I hope you do too.

The Holy Spirit gives us the confidence to be where we find ourselves, possibly depressed, old, sickly. Ancient trees may have rotten branches but they have a beauty that comes from all the years they have lived. If we live in the Holy Spirit, nothing is lost to us, not even our failures, immaturities or sins. When you are fifteen, you do not want to know about when you were ten. You are looking ahead, hoping to be something else. But true growth comes from knowing: I am fifteen, which means that each of those 15 years has added something to me. My successes come from what I did with my failures. I have survived some sufferings, and have learned from them. The Holy Spirit would have helped Saint Peter to think about the denial of Christ and crowing of the cock. He would rather have forgotten about it, undone it. Instead he learned to make it part of the Lord's dealing with him, as much a part as Jesus' tender words to him after the Resurrection: Feed my sheep.