Sunday, August 05, 2007

prayer for the week

Let your continual mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without your help, protect and govern it always by your goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

from BCP

4 comments:

Ted M. Gossard said...

For fun I want to comment on this on Saturday for a Sunday post.

Anyhow I've been using the prayer that is the collect for each day in the service which of course includes other prayers, from the BCP, Book of Common Prayer.

Of course I believe most all of our prayer should be what Bonhoeffer called "free prayer", that is spontaneous to God like any conversation we might have, except to God. Go to the psalms to get a taste of what real prayer is meant to be like. And the prayer Jesus taught us to pray called "the Lord's prayer" or the "Our Father" prayer.

I'm sure I've grown alot in prayer but still just feel like a beginner. Prayer certainly has an element of mystery in it. After all we're by faith speaking to God, God-self.

Ted M. Gossard said...

I meant that I use this as a prayer that I pray at least once most everyday during the week following Sunday.

Anonymous said...

sometimes when i pray a spontaneous prayer to God...i end up rewording and rethinking what i want to say...and it helps me to get my attitude in a better place to have to say what i am thinking out loud to God.

Ted M. Gossard said...

Nancy, Interesting. That could be the Spirit helping you.

I think it's a blessing that we can pour out all our gunk and garbage to God, sparing others. We're certainly to pour out ourselves just as we are to God, all of it, as we see from the psalms.