Prayer Cycle / Monk in the World / Day 3
Day 3: Community
Video, Audio and Written Guides for Morning and Evening Prayer
Morning Prayer
OPENING PRAYER
We gather this morning to commit ourselves to cultivating community by finding kindred spirits along the path and welcoming in the cloud of witnesses as sources of support and wisdom. As Sister Thea Bowman reminds us, “Remember who you are and whose you are.” We belong to one another.
OPENING SONG
Archangel Invocation
FIRST READING: Edward Sellner
To be a monk today or someone seeking to incorporate monastic values into his or her own life presumes being a part of a community of friends, people with whom a person can share the counsels of the heart and speak a language of the heart to one another.
SUNG PSALM OPENING
O Hope, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise. (Repeat)
PSALM 103
God forgives our sins and failings
heals our fears and anxieties
gives meaning to life and death
is our love.
In God we are satisfied with good things
renewed in vigor
reminded of righteous ways.
God hates all oppression
God is compassion
slow to anger and swift to forgive
Loving us like a good parent—remembering that we are
like flowers in the field, that bloom in their time,
and fade away.
God’s goodness lives in us, and in our children
From once-upon-a-time to forever and ever.
Bless God, you holy angels
Bless God, you wise ones
Bless God, all you who do God’s work,
Bless God, O my soul.
SUNG DOXOLOGY
Glory to the Maker, Lover, and Keeper; as ago, in this breath, and will be ever. Amen, Amen.
SECOND READING: Nehemiah 1:1-8
Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, “If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples; but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are under the farthest skies, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place at which I have chosen to establish my name.”
SILENT CONTEMPLATION
PRAYERS OF CONCERN
We offer prayers now for all that is on our hearts.
God of the ancient ones, we thank you for the witness of those down the centuries who have lived together in monasteries and communities sharing a rule of life. May we discover a rhythm for our lives that nourishes and sustains. Bless us with others to support us in our living. Gift us with relationships in which trust deepens and reveal to us the joy of deep speaking to deep.
Sung Response – O God of Love, reveal your face in friendship.
God of the yearning ones, we pray for those who long to belong but who struggle to build meaningful and nurturing friendships. Soothe their loneliness and pain with the healing caress of your love. Increase our sensitivity to others and create a space in our hearts for those we find hard to love. As you embrace us in all our diversity, may our relationships mirror your compassion and acceptance.
Sung Response – O God of Love, reveal your face in friendship.
God of the vulnerable ones, we share a common home with species and creatures of every imaginable size, shape and colour. Yet so many are endangered by our human greed and exploitation. We cry out in anguish to you. When will we learn that all of life is an interdependent community? Show us again how to live well together. Then we will sing your praise and delight in life’s flourishing.
Sung Response – O God of Love, reveal your face in friendship.
Please add the prayers you are longing to express.
Sung Response – O God of Love, reveal your face in friendship.
CLOSING SONG
Divine
CLOSING BLESSING
God of friendship
I come to know your love and care
through the embodied presence of others.
Weave me together with kindred spirits,
knit me more closely with friends of the soul,
cultivate in me a kinship with humanity
so that I recognize my struggles and joys in others.
In my loneliness reveal to me this communion
and may I be a solace to others who ache for connection.
Transform me through conversation and loving presence.
Help me to see how I am part of a great circle
of pilgrims, witnesses, ancestors, and mystics
who guide me to true connection with You.
Gather me into your great wide heart,
so I might discover I am never separate
but always held in love.
SUNG AMEN
Credits
All songs and texts used with permission
Opening Prayer written by Christine Valters Paintner
Opening Song: Archangel Invocation by Simon de Voil
First Reading from Edward Sellner, Finding the Monk Within: Great Monastic Values for Today.
Ambassador Books, Inc (2008).
Sung Psalm Opening and Doxology by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan
Interpretation of Psalm 103 by Rev. Christine Robinson
Second Reading from Nehemiah 1:1-8 (NRSV)
Prayers of Concern written by Valerie Allen
Sung Response by Betsey Beckman
Closing Song: Divine by Soyinka Rahim
Closing Blessing: written by Christine Valters Paintner
Please note: All of the Opening and Closing Songs are published on CDs in the Abbey of the Arts collection. In addition, these songs have accompanying gesture prayers and/or dances created by Betsey Beckman that can be found on the corresponding DVD (each album has a DVD companion). The Psalm Opening, Doxology, and the Response to the Prayers of Concern also have accompanying congregational gestures. The audio and video recordings of these are available at AbbeyoftheArts.com.
Evening Prayer
OPENING PRAYER
Let us reflect on how we found companionship this day. Whether through the kindness of strangers, reaching out of friends, the circle of creation, or the communion of the saints, let us celebrate all the ways we felt our connection to one another.
OPENING SONG
Canticle of Creation
SUNG PSALM OPENING
O Hope, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise. (Repeat)
PSALM 113
Hallelujah!
Open your hearts, you servants of God
Open your hearts to God
Strive to be a fertile field for God’s love
All day, all night, all ways.
God’s work encompasses the nations,
the world, the distances between the stars.
God’s work is in the atom, the
core, the interstices of matter.
God’s work is in the deeds of love, the
justice of society, the care of friends.
God’s life is in every life, making us one family.
God’s justice lifts the poor
setting them with nobility in the human community.
God’s love fills our hearts
with everything we need.
SUNG DOXOLOGY
Glory to the Maker, Lover, and Keeper; as ago, in this breath, and will be ever. Amen, Amen.
READING OF THE NIGHT: Henri Nouwen
When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
SILENT CONTEMPLATION
CLOSING POEM
God Among the Pots and Pans
(After St. Teresa of Avila)
Sifting flour for daily bread
white mist rises
dough multiplies before my eyes
Chopped carrots
form a broken string
of orange prayer beads
The sharp knife cuts through
any confusion
bone gleaming exposed
Sizzle of steak
onions and mushrooms
alchemy of steel and flame
My cup of coffee
is of course
always a revelation
And the glasses of wine
waiting on the table
a wonder of earth and time
Magpie caws outside
an apparition in black and white
among russet leaves
The sun descends slowly
in violet reverie recalling
the beauty of endings
The timer bell rings
calling me back again
to this prayer
To the miracles
of dinner and dishwater
and our long slow sighs.
CLOSING SONG
Now I Walk in Beauty
Credits
All songs and texts used with permission
Opening Prayer written by Christine Valters Paintner
Opening Song: Canticle of Creation by Simon de Voil
Psalm Opening and Doxology by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan
Interpretation of Psalm 113 by Rev. Christine Robinson
Reading of the Night from Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life.
Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press (2008).
Closing Poem by Christine Valters Paintner, Dreaming of Stones. Paraclete Press (2019).
Closing Song: Now I Walk in Beauty by Lorraine Bayes
Please note: All of the Opening and Closing Songs are published on CDs in the Abbey of the Arts collection. In addition, these songs have accompanying gesture prayers and/or dances created by Betsey Beckman that can be found on the corresponding DVD (each album has a DVD companion). The Psalm Opening and Doxology also have accompanying congregational gestures. The audio and video recordings of these are available at AbbeyoftheArts.com.
