(Download PDF For Today’s Daily Prayer Guide)

Setting aside even a brief time each day to pray helps us create a stable spiritual center in our lives. This guided prayer is largely based on the Morning, Noon and Evening Prayer cycle found in the Book of Common Prayer.

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Online Text Version

INSTRUCTIONS: The underlined text  are headings and do not need to be read. [Brackets] are instructions to be followed but not necessarily read. (Parentheses) are references and not to be read. FOR INDIVIDUAL PRAYER: I suggest you read the prayer sheet aloud, but reading silently is fine too. Don’t pay any attention to the Bold Italic Type. FOR GROUP PRAYER: have one person act as leader. The leader reads the regular print and everyone reads the Bold Italic Type together.

Daily Prayer for December 13

Opening Sentences:

God of joy and exultation, you strengthen what is weak; you enrich the poor and give hope to those who live in fear. ^ff

You are the descendants of the prophets and of the covenant that God gave to your ancestors, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your descendants all of the families of the earth will be blessed.’  When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you, to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways. (Acts. 3:25-26)

Praying Together:

Lord, open our lips.

Our mouth shall proclaim your praise. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.  Amen.

Confession:

Merciful God, in you we take refuge and all you have is ours.

You have given freely to us your very life.  But we have not given freely to you, O Lord.

We have not loved you with our whole heart or given freely of that which is only on loan to us.

Help us Lord, to see you more clearly, love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly.

Forgive us when we stray, hear us when we pray. Free us for joyful obedience, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

From Psalm 95:

Come, let us sing to the Lord; let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before God’s presence with thanksgiving; and raise to the Lord a shout with psalms.

For you are a great God;

you are great above all gods.   Amen

[Silent Prayer; or Music may be listened to; or a Hymn is sung.]

Prayers of the People: (Carlo Carretto Letters from the Desert*)

Our Father, give us the faith to believe that it is possible for us to live victoriously even in the midst of dangerous opportunity that we call crisis. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer. [Silent Prayer]

Help us to see that there is something better than patient endurance or keeping a stiff upper lip, and that whistling in the dark is not really bravery. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer. [Silent Prayer]

Bless us with the greatness of humility, that we may feel no shame in expressing our need of a living God.  Forgive the pride that causes us to strut about like knights in shining armor when we know full well that we are but beggars in tattered rags.  Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer. 

[Silent Prayer]

Plant a seed of faith in us today and nurture it that it may grow.  Then, trusting in thee may we have the faith that goes singing in the rain, knowing that all things work together for good to them that love thee. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.  [Silent Prayer]

In your mercy Lord, hear us as we pray together:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

Closing prayer:  (from Teresa of Avila)

“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”  Now go in peace to love and to serve the Lord.

Amen.

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Sources

Image: Refugees: La Sagrada Familia Kelly Latimore, http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57109, https://kellylatimoreicons.com/                         

^ff From Revised Common Lectionary Prayers, Consultation on Common Texts.

 *A Guide to Prayer for All God’s People, Job & Shawchuck, p. 38

Music Selection from The Hymnal Project