Prayer Cycle / Monk in the World / Day 6
Day 6: Conversion
Video, Audio and Written Guides for Morning and Evening Prayer
Morning Prayer
OPENING PRAYER
As we begin a new day, we commit ourselves to the journey of ongoing conversion and holy surprise. Let our eyes be opened to see the divine face in fresh ways each day.
Let us begin again.
OPENING SONG
Remember the Path
FIRST READING: Rainer Maria Rilke
If the Angel deigns to come it will because you have convinced her, not by tears but by your humble resolve to be always beginning; to be a beginner.
SUNG PSALM OPENING
O Wisdom, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise. (Repeat)
PSALM 99
Awaken to the awesome mystery of God
Who cradles the earth and all her peoples,
Who planted the laws of justice and mercy in our hearts,
Who nurtured and nudged the saints of the ages
and the teachers of the people
Forgiving them their faults, mistakes,
addictions, and selfishness,
And invited them to grow and change.
Awaken to this awesome mystery
Follow it all your days.
SUNG DOXOLOGY
Glory to the Maker, Lover, and Keeper; as ago, in this breath, and will be ever. Amen, Amen.
SECOND READING: Jeremiah 31:31-34
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
SILENT CONTEMPLATION
PRAYERS OF CONCERN
We offer prayers now for all that is on our hearts.
Loving God, forgive us when we make conversion into a one- time event based around belief instead of an ongoing encounter. Help us release rigidity that keeps us set in our ways and teach us the truth of St Benedict’s words, “Always we begin again.”
Sung Response – O God of Love, surprise us with your vision
Holy one, you come to us in so many guises. Forgive us for making you in our own image, help us learn to be surprised by your appearing new every morning.
Sung Response – O God of Love, surprise us with your vision
Compassionate one, so often we are entrenched in our way of seeing things, our way of expressing what we call faith. May we learn to let go of our formulas and habitual ways of seeing things and learn to embrace the challenge of change and find you in unfamiliar places.
Sung Response – O God of Love, surprise us with your vision
Please add the prayers you are longing to express.
Sung Response – O God of Love, surprise us with your vision
CLOSING SONG
Revolution of the Heart
CLOSING BLESSING
God of holy surprises,
infuse us with your wild wonder,
attune our hearts to all the ways
you dance through the world
from the ordinary to the sublime.
Sustain us in the daily practice
of opening our eyes to grace.
Expand our imaginations to see
more deeply and more widely than before.
Align us with all the ways you are at work,
always extending a new vision
when all seems shut down.
Help us to experience the eruption of seeds
in springtime and that abundant growth,
as a sign of your generous love.
Inspire us to begin again and again.
SUNG AMEN
Credits
All songs and texts used with permission
Opening Prayer written by Christine Valters Paintner
Opening Song: Remember the Path by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan
First Reading from Rainer Maria Rilke, “Letter XI” in the published collection, first appearing in French under the title Lettres Francaises a Merline. 1919 – 1922, published in 1950.
Sung Psalm Opening and Doxology by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan
Interpretation of Psalm 99 by Rev. Christine Robinson
Second Reading from Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NRSV).
Prayers of Concern written by Polly Burns
Sung Response by Betsey Beckman
Closing Song: Revolution of the Heart by David Ash
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
Open our hearts this evening to see the gifts you offered to us shimmering beneath the surface of our ordinary moments. Let us give thanks for all the ways we were opened to wonder, awe, and delight.
OPENING SONG
Now I Am Revealing
SUNG PSALM OPENING
O Wisdom, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise. (Repeat)
PSALM 90
We have come out of the Earth
and to the Earth we return
Our lives are but a flash in the light of Eternity.
We are like beautiful flowers which live only a day.
We might live 70 years—more if our strength holds.
So much work and hardship!
How quickly the time passes.
Teach us then, to value our days
to treat each one as a sacred trust.
Fill our hearts with wisdom.
and a love for our lives.
In spite of all the grief and suffering
May we be always glad of this precious gift
And hallow the good in each day.
SUNG DOXOLOGY
Glory to the Maker, Lover, and Keeper; as ago, in this breath, and will be ever. Amen, Amen.
READING OF THE NIGHT: Paul Wilkes
Translations vary, but in our modern day, conversatio morum suorum generally means conversion of manners, a continuing and unsparing assessment and reassessment of one’s self and what is most important and valuable in life. In essence, the individual must continually ask: What is worth living for in this place at this time? And having asked, one must then seek to act in accordance with the answer discerned.
SILENT CONTEMPLATION
CLOSING POEM: “A Glimpse of the Underglimmer”
You can see it sometimes in October
when the sun’s low angle slides
gold over the field,
effervescence of light,
or you stand in a forest of cedars
and March rain pads
hundreds of tiny feet across
the emerald canopy,
or the fireflies of July form
new constellations, then vanish
into summer’s night leaving only
trails of light in your memory,
or you stand in a May meadow,
a fox crossing quietly, you hold
still as possible, the sliver of moon
above, holding its breath with you.
CLOSING SONG
The World is My Monastery
Credits
All songs and texts used with permission
Opening Prayer written by Christine Valters Paintner
Opening Song: Now I am Revealing by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan
Psalm Opening and Doxology by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan
Interpretation of Psalm 90 by Rev. Christine Robinson
Reading of the Night from Paul Wilkes, Beyond the Walls: Monastic Wisdom for Everyday Life.
New York: Doubleday Religion (1999).
Closing Poem by Christine Valters Paintner, The Wisdom of Wild Grace. Paraclete Press (2020).
Closing Song: The World is My Monastery by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan
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.
