Did you know the Common Cause Partnership has a prayer blog? Well, they do. And today they’ve begun posting a series of daily prayer entries for the GAFCON event in Jordan and Jerusalem next month. Here’s the link to today’s entry for Day 1 of this 40 Day prayer effort.
And here’s the background on the call to 40 days of prayer and fasting. Note the specific focus on reading and praying through the Psalms of Ascent:
The bishops have specified that the Daily Office, the Great Litany, and the Psalms of Ascent (120-134) be used during this season. The Psalms of Ascent were chosen because of the impact they had on the Global South meeting in Nairobi out of which GAFCON was birthed. Contributors to the Common Cause Partnership prayer blog will be posting these resources along with reflections, scriptures, collects and other aids to prayer as the 40 days unfold. Participants are invited to report specific needs, praises, and other feedback on the prayer blog.
The Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church said she is sending the Bishop of Colorado, the Rt. Rev. Robert O’Neill to GAFCON in Amman and Jerusalem…However, GAFCON conveners say that GAFCON is by invitation from the Leadership Team and that no invitation has been extended to O’Neill.
We need to pray for the saftey of those attending GAFCON when there are such direct assaults like this one being threatened…perhaps a Massad restraining order would be a good idea…
Given O’Neill’s recent procedings against both CANA and AMiA clergy you can bet he won’t get much of a warm reception…I wonder why Schori/O’Neill consider GAFCON a threat and feel the need to have a presence there? Could it be to defend the church from the Gospel, which is clearly all that GAFCON is about…
Ricky – I think the PB said she was sending O’Neill to be in Jerusalem, not necessarily that he was being included in GAFCON.
Odd that ++Anis is not attending GAFCON now, though…
O’Neill will be going as Schori’s “agent provocateur,” and I’m quite sure that the organizers will know that, and will bar him if he shows up.
By “Divine Office” do they mean Morning and Evening Prayer according to the BCP or do they mean the Roman Divine Office? By the “Great Litany” do they mean the Litany from the BCP or do they mean the actual Great Litany as used in the Eastern Orthodox divine services? Getting the terms right is important. I’m also curious as to what precisely they mean by “fasting”.
Actually this is a serious event that with all thoughtfulness and prayerful good intentions has the potential to do something important in our own time and to wonderfully glory our Lord, or with those same good intentions to get it all terribly wrong, with the devil ever eager to foil our witness…please do pray for GAFCON be ye friend or foe, liberal or conservative, and ask that God blesses it with his word to us, even a word that will heal and restore that which has been rend asunder.