Category : Church Year / Liturgical Seasons

A Prayer for the day from the ACNA pryaerbook

Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A Prayer for the day from Daily Prayer

O God, who hast created man to be immortal, and madest him to be an image of thine own eternity: Lift our eyes, we pray thee, above earthly things, that we may claim, and by thy grace attain, our heavenly inheritance; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Daily Prayer, Eric Milner-White and G. W. Briggs, eds. (London: Penguin Books 1959 edition of the 1941 original)

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A prayer for the day from Frank Colquhoun

Lord Christ, almighty Saviour, we cry to thee for aid against our strong enemy.  O thou who art the Stronger than the strong, deliver us, we pray thee, from the evil one, and take sole possession of our hearts and minds; that filled with thy Spirit we may henceforth devote our lives to thy service, and therein find our perfect freedom; for the honour of thy great name.

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A prayer for the day from Euchologium Anglicanum

O Eternal God, who through thy Son our Lord hast promised a blessing upon those who hear thy Word and faithfully keep it: Open our ears, we humbly beseech thee, to hear what thou sayest, and enlighten our minds, that what we hear we may understand, and understanding may carry into good effect by thy bounteous prompting; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A prayer for the day from Joseph Hall

O Thou who hast prepared a place for my soul, prepare my soul for that place.  Prepare it with holiness; prepare it with desire; and even while it sojourneth upon earth, let it dwell in heaven with thee, beholding the beauty of thy countenance and the glory of thy saints, now and for evermore.

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A Prayer for the Feast of the Annunciation

We beseech thee, O Lord, pour thy grace into our hearts; that we who have known the incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ, announced by an angel to the Virgin Mary, may by his cross and passion be brought unto the glory of his resurrection; who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Posted in Church Year / Liturgical Seasons, Spirituality/Prayer, Theology: Scripture

A prayer for the day from Bishop William Walsham How

O almighty Father, giver of every good and perfect gift, who hast made the light of thy truth to shine in our hearts: Make us to walk as children of light in all goodness and righteousness, that we may have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A Prayer for the day from the ACNA prayerbook

Heavenly Father, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you: Look with compassion upon the heartfelt desires of your servants, and purify our disordered affections, that we may behold your eternal glory in the face of Christ Jesus; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A Prayer for today from the Church of England

Eternal God, through your Spirit
give us insight
to discern your will for us,
to give up what harms us,
and to seek the perfection we are promised
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen (slightly edited; KSH).

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A Prayer for today from the Church of England

Almighty God,you show to those who are in error the light of your truth,that they may return to the way of righteousness:grant to all those who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion, that they may reject those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same;through our Lord Jesus Christ,who is alive and reigns with you,in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Posted in Church of England (CoE), Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A Prayer for the day from Jeremy Taylor

Eternal God, who has made all things for man, and man for thy glory: Sanctify our bodies and souls, our thoughts and our intentions, our words and actions.  Let our body be a servant of our mind, and both body and spirit servants of Jesus Christ; that doing all things for thy glory here, we may be partakers of thy glory hereafter; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A Prayer for the day from Gordon Hewitt

O God, who through thy Son Jesus Christ hast promised help to man according to his faith: Grant us the freedom of the children to taste the food of eternal life, and to share with others what we ourselves receive; through the merits of the same thy Son, our Lord.

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A Prayer for the day from C. J. Vaughan

Write deeply upon our minds, O Lord God, the lesson of thy holy Word, that only the pure in heart can see thee.  Leave us not in the bondage of any sinful inclination.  May we neither deceive ourselves with the thought that we have no sin, nor acquiesce idly in aught of which our conscience accuses us.  Strengthen us by thy Holy Spirit to fight the good fight of faith, and grant that no day may pass without its victory; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A Prayer for the day from B. F. Westcott

O Eternal God, who hast taught us by thy holy Word that our bodies are temples of thy Spirit: Keep us, we most humbly beseech thee, temperate and holy in thought, word and deed, that at the last we, with all the pure in heart, may see thee and be made like unto thee in thy heavenly kingdom; through Christ our Lord.

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A Prayer for the day from the Church of England

Almighty God,
you show to those who are in error the light of your truth,
that they may return to the way of righteousness:
grant to all those who are admitted
into the fellowship of Christ’s religion,
that they may reject those things
that are contrary to their profession,
and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same;
through our Lord Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A Prayer for the day from the ACNA prayerbook

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities that may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts that may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A Prayer for the day from James Ferguson

Almighty and eternal God, who has so made us of body, soul and spirit, that we live not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from thee: Make us to hunger for the spiritual food of thy Word; and as we trust thee for our daily bread, may we also trust thee to give us day by day the inward nourishment of that living truth which thou hast revealed to us in thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A prayer for the day from from Frederick B. Macnutt

O Lord and heavenly Father, who hast given unto us thy people the true bread that cometh down from heaven, even thy Son Jesus Christ: Grant that throughout this Lent our souls may so be fed by him that we may continually live in him and he in us; and that day by day we may be renewed in spirit by the power of his endless life, who gave himself for us, and now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A prayer for the day from Prayers for the Christian Year

Almighty God, spirit of peace and of grace, whose salvation is never far from penitent hearts: We confess the sins that have estranged us from thee, dimmed our vision of heavenly things, and brought upon us many troubles and sorrows.  O merciful Father, grant unto us who humble ourselves before thee the remission of all our sins, and the assurance of thy pardon and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Prayers for the Christian Year (SCM, 1964)

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A prayer for the day from B F Westcott

Blessed Lord, who wast tempted in all things like as we are, have mercy upon our frailty.  Out of weakness give us strength; grant to us thy fear, that we may fear thee only; support us in time of temptation; embolden us in time of danger; help us to do thy work with good courage, and to continue thy faithful soldiers and servants unto our life’s end.

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A prayer for the day from the Church of England

Almighty God,
whose Son Jesus Christ fasted forty days in the wilderness,
and was tempted as we are, yet without sin:
give us grace to discipline ourselves in obedience to your Spirit;
and, as you know our weakness,
so may we know your power to save;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A prayer for the day from Frank Colquhoun

Save us, O God, from the false piety that parades itself in the eyes of men and is not genuine in thy sight; and so sanctify us by thy Spirit that both in heart and life we may serve thee acceptably, to the honour of thy holy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A C.S. Lewis reflection for Lent 2025

The idea of national repentance seems at first sight to provide such an edifying contrast to that national self-righteousness of which England is so often accused and with which she entered (or is said to have entered) the last war, that a Christian naturally turns to it with hope. Young Christians especially-last-year undergraduates and first-year curates- are turning to it in large numbers. They are ready to believe that England bears part of the guilt for the present war, and ready to admit their own share in the guilt of England. What that share is, I do not find it easy to determine. Most of these young men were children, and none of them had a vote or the experience which would enable them to use a vote wisely, when England made many of those decisions to which the present disorders could plausibly be traced. Are they, perhaps, repenting what they have in no sense done?

If they are, it might be supposed that their error is very harmless: men fail so often to repent their real sins that the occasional repentance of an imaginary sin might appear almost desirable. But what actually happens (I have watched it happening) to the youthful national penitent is a little more complicated than that. England is not a natural agent, but a civil society. When we speak of England’s actions we mean the actions of the British government. The young man who is called upon to repent of England’s foreign policy is really being called upon to repent the acts of his neighbor; for a foreign secretary or a cabinet minister is certainly a neighbor. And repentance presupposes condemnation. The first and fatal charm of national repentance is, therefore, the encouragement it gives us to turn from the bitter task of repenting our own sins to the congenial one of bewailing-but, first, of denouncing-the conduct of others.

–-C.S. Lewis, “Dangers of national repentance”

Posted in Church History, Lent, Theology

(Eleanor Parker) ‘þu eart dust and to duste gewendst’: Ælfric, Ash Wednesday and ‘The Seafarer’

On that Wednesday, throughout the world,
as it is appointed, priests bless
clean ashes in church, and then lay them
on people’s heads, so that they may remember
that they came from earth and will return again to dust,
just as Almighty God said to Adam,
after he had sinned against God’s command:
‘In labour you shall live and in sweat you shall eat
your bread upon the earth, until you return again
to the same earth from which you came,
for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’
This is not said about the souls of mankind,
but about their bodies, which moulder to dust,
and shall again on Judgement Day, through the power of our Lord,
rise from the earth, all who ever lived,
just as all trees quicken again in the season of spring
which were deadened by the winter’s chill.

Read it all.

Posted in Church History, Lent

A Prayer for the Feast Day of William Mayo, Charles Menninger and Their Sons

Divine Physician, your Name is blessed for the work and witness of the Mayos and the Menningers, and the revolutionary developments that they brought to the practice of medicine. As Jesus went about healing the sick as a sign of the reign of God come near, bless and guide all those inspired to the work of healing by thy Holy Spirit, that they may follow his example for the sake of thy kingdom and the health of thy people; through the same Jesus Christ, who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, now and for ever.

Posted in Church History, Health & Medicine, Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A prayer for the day from the Church of England

Holy God, you know the disorder of our sinful lives: by your Spirit set straight, our crooked hearts, and bend our wills to love your goodness and your glory in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen (slightly edited; KSH).

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

A Prayer for Ash Wednesday from Harold Anson

O Lord Jesus Christ, who didst take upon thee the form of a servant, humbling thyself and accepting death for us, even the death of the cross: Grant that this mind may be also in us; so that we may gladly take upon ourselves the life of humility and service, and taking up our cross daily may follow thee in thy suffering and death, that with thee we may attain unto the power of thy endless life.  Grant this, O Christ, our Saviour and our King.

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer

John Calvin on Silence and Psalm 62 for Ash Wednesday

But in order to arrive at its full meaning, we must suppose that David felt an inward struggle and opposition, which he found it necessary to check. Satan had raised a tumult in his affections, and wrought a degree of impatience in his mind, which he now curbs; and he expresses his resolution to be silent. The word implies a meek and submissive endurance of the cross. It expresses the opposite of that heat of spirit which would put us into a posture of resistance to God. The silence intended is, in short, that composed submission of the believer, in the exercise of which he acquiesces in the promises of God, gives place to his word, bows to his sovereignty, and suppresses every inward murmur of dissatisfaction.

–From his commentary on the Psalms

Posted in Church History, Lent, Theology: Scripture

South Carolina Bishop Chip Edgar’s Ash Wednesday Message 2025

Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, * South Carolina, Anthropology, Lent

A prayer for Ash Wednesday from the Church of England

Almighty and everlasting God,
you hate nothing that you have made
and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent:
create and make in us new and contrite hearts
that we, worthily lamenting our sins
and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may receive from you, the God of all mercy,
perfect remission and forgiveness;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Posted in Lent, Spirituality/Prayer