Two Ash Wednesday Prayers

Two Ash Wednesday prayers from Creighton University’s Praying Lent site:

Let us pray
for the grace to keep Lent faithfully.

Lord,
protect us in the struggle against evil.
As we begin the discipline of Lent,
make this season holy by our self-denial.
Grant this through our Lord, Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

***

Let us pray
in quiet remembrance of our need for redemption.

Father in heaven,
the light of your truth bestows sight
to the darkness of sinful eyes.
May this season of repentance
bring us the blessing of your forgiveness
and the gift of your light.
Grant this through Christ our Lord.

Source: Praying Lent (first four days)

(There is also an Ash Wednesday meditation on the same page)

Symeon the New Theologian’s Hymn of Divine Love

Over at the Speaking to the Soul portion of the Episcopal Cafe blog, there is an absolutely beautiful prayer today by Symeon the New Theologian.

Here is the beginning.

Light that knows no evening

Come, true light.
Come, life eternal.
Come, hidden mystery.
Come, treasure without name.
Come, reality beyond all words.
Come, person beyond all understanding.
Come, rejoicing without end.
Come, light that knows no evening.
Come, unfailing expectation of the saved.
Come, raising of the fallen.
Come, resurrection of the dead.
Come, all-powerful, for unceasingly you create,
refashion, and change all things by your will alone.

Go read it all! What an amazingly powerful and beautiful prayer

Deuteronomy 5:16-22

“Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may be well with you in the land which the LORD your God is giving you.” (Deuteronomy 5:16)
      Father, we ask you to restore right relationships in the families of this diocese.

“You shall not murder.” (Deuteronomy 5:17)
      Holy Spirit, soften our hearts toward those in harm’s way in the inner cities of this diocese.

“You shall not commit adultery.” (Deuteronomy 5:18 )
      Jesus, help us as a nation turn away from those programs on TV and on the Web that promote adultery and fornication.

“You shall not steal.” (Deuteronomy 5:19)
      Father, we see all around us the devastation caused by living and borrowing beyond our means to repay; bring your order in the finances of your people. Help us recognize usury for what it is and avoid it.

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” (Deuteronomy 5:20)
      Holy Spirit, please help us speak the truth in love about our neighbors and about our brothers and sisters in your church.

“You shall not covet your neighbor”s wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor”s house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor”s.” (Deuteronomy 5:21)
      Jesus, please help us walk in your footsteps and desire what you want us to desire.

“These words the LORD spoke to all your assembly, in the mountain from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and He added no more. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.” (Deuteronomy 5:22)
      LORD, our hearts have become hardened; write your word on our hearts and soften them. Lead us by day and by night through the present wilderness in the church and in the nation. Thank you.

Tuesday: 26, 28; Deuteronomy 6:16-25; Hebrews 2:1-10; John 1:19-28
Ash Wednesday: 32, 143; Jonah 3:1-4:11; Hebrews 12:1-14; Luke 18:9-14

Albany Intercessor

Sleepers Awake! The Heart of Lent

As part of an intentional search for more explicitly Anglican Lent resources (see my appeal from yesterday), I revisited last year’s Lenten Anglican Carnival. (I’ll be posting more links from that soon). In the comments there I found the link excellent reflection on “the heart of Lent” from Fr. Steve of Christ our Hope Anglican Church in Fort Collins, CO.

Here’s an excerpt:

So what is the heart of Lent?

At its core Lent is about awakening. It is about shaking off the slumber of the ‘Old Man’ as St. Paul calls it in order to prepare the person: body, soul and spirit to greet with Joy the celebration of Resurrection Life at Easter. Of course the student of Scripture will be quick to point out that the joy of Resurrection Sunday is meant for the Christian every day of the year and of course this is true. The breaking in of Christ’s new and glorious Kingdom, the defeat of death once and for all and the enlivening of our souls could never be isolated to a yearly commemoration. And yet, how often do we find that while these are truths that come readily to mind and flow readily off our lips, they are truths that we in our busy and harried post-modern lives seldom seem to live in light of. And so we become dulled to these truths. We are like leaden-limbed men and women struggling to shake off a deep and seemingly satisfying slumber. Instead of heeding the call of Christ to seek His Kingdom above all else, we are driven by our own desires and impulses or those of somebody else. We need something to awaken us from this deluded dream walk.

What Lent offers us in remedy to this spiritual malaise is a saturating dose of reality. To awaken we must first become aware of the true state of things.

Read the whole entry here – it really is worth the time!

Ash Wednesday Links & Resources

Note:  Much of this entry comes from our archives – from 2006 – but I’ve updated it.  Many of the links are to archived Lent & Beyond entries at the internet archive site.  I have tried to check all the primary links to make sure they work.  They should all be fine, though sometimes a bit balky.  Sometimes however, the secondary links on an archived page might not open because they try to point to an archive of the secondary site that might not exist.  Try to delete the webarchive portion of any secondary link and you’ll likely get to the site.

For example, on one of the archived pages below, there is a link to a longer version of St. John Chrysostom’s homily on fasting.   The archived link looks like this

http://web.archive.org/web/20070429110514/http://www.cin.org/chrystat.html

But it doesn’t work.  You need instead to go to the original source, the portion of the link I’ve highlighted in bold: http://www.cin.org/chrystat.html

***

I. Here are links to Ash Wednesday resources I posted in 2004:
1928 Penitential Office
St. John Chrysostom on Fasting
Peter Toon: Outward vs. Inward Fasting
An Exhortation from Bp. Ackerman re: Lent (for this entry you need to scroll down the archive page, there is no archive of this specific entry, only the page for the last week of Feb. 2004)

II. Lenten Resources and Meditations (2005):
Amy Welborn: Reflections on sacrifice during Lent
“Prayer knocks at the door, fasting obtains, mercy receives” (St. Peter Chrysologus)
The Rev. Dr. Louis Tarsitano “Repenting” Ash Wed. 2000 Sermon [link updated Feb 2006]
Augustine on fasting and cleansing the heart [link updated Feb 2006]
The Rev. Matt Kennedy “What to give up for Lent?” [cached version]

1979 ECUSA Ash Wednesday Liturgy

——-
III.  Ash Wednesday LINKS — 2006

The Origins of Ash Wednesday
Fasting During Lent in the Anglican Tradition, an essay by the Rev. Skip Burzumato, St. Andrew’s Savannah
An extended prayer of confession – based on the Decalogue (I posted the link to this a few days ago, but it’s worth a repeat here)

From 2004, surprised I have forgotten to link this sooner: David Mills (Touchstone) “The Dust of Adam”

DON’T MISS THIS: “All About Ash Wednesday“ — from Churchyear.net a great resource!

******

NEWLY ADDED ASH WEDNESDAY LINKS (covering posts from 2007 – 2009)

“Seek the Lord and Live,” Karen B’s Ash Wednesday Devotional from the L&B Anglican Bloggers’ Lent Series

Ash Wednesday Resources and Prayers from ChurchYear.Net

Ashes, an excellent Ash Wednesday meditation found at Pat McDonough’s faith and family blog.

Two Ash Wednesday Prayers

Prayers for Zimbabwe, as requested by the Anglican Primates

Why I Fast, A video by Frederica Mathewes-Green (the video is here)

Fr. Stephen Freeman on “the Difficulty of Lent” (original is here)

Prayer for a Holy Lent

Scriptures on the theme of Ash Wednesday (click on the link “show” next to the Ash Wednesday title)

Charles Wesley: Christ Whose Glory Fills the Skies

Our friend and fellow Anglican blogger Pat Dague posted a beautiful devotional at her blog Transfigurations on Saturday: Christ whose glory fills the skies. Perfect for Sunday’s lectionary focused on the Transfiguration.

Of course as I’ve noted twice already in the past 48 hours, I seem to be seeing connections between the Transfiguration and Lent all over the place, and this is another one of them. It is not only a beautiful hymn on the Sunday we remember the Transfiguration, but it makes a good Lent prayer. So, here’s a repost of Pat’s devotional as a lead up for Lent.

***

Christ, whose glory fills the skies,
Christ, the true, the only Light,
Sun of Righteousness, arise,
Triumph o’er the shades of night;
Dayspring from on high, be near;
Day-star, in my heart appear.

Dark and cheerless is the morn
Unaccompanied by Thee;
Joyless is the day’s return
Till Thy mercy’s beams I see;
Till they inward light impart,
Glad my eyes, and warm my heart.

Visit then this soul of mine,
Pierce the gloom of sin and grief;
Fill me, Radiancy divine,
Scatter all my unbelief;
More and more Thyself display,
Shining to the perfect day.

- Charles Wes­ley
image credit

***

Listen: to the Canterbury Cathedral Choir perform this song.

I think that last stanza is going to become my personal refrain for Lent this year!

Lent Quotes: The purpose of spiritual disciplines

From our archives, originally posted Feb. 2007

Lent Quotes: The purpose of spiritual disciplines
Filed under: Spiritual Disciplines, Lent 2007, Lent Quotes — Karen B.

James Kushiner has a great summary of the purpose of spiritual disciplines over on Touchstone’s Mere Comments blog:

A discipline won’t bring you closer to God. Only God can bring you closer to Himself. What the discipline is meant to do is to help you get yourself, your ego, out of the way so you are open to His grace. (full text)

How true. And how beautifully stated.

Lent Quotes: Teresa of Avila – bringing our wills into conformity with the will of God

From our archives, originally posted Feb. 2007

Lent Quotes: Teresa of Avila
Filed under: Saints & Church Fathers, Lent 2007, Lent Quotes — Karen B.

Another great quote culled from one of Jill W’s 2005 prayer posts. It fits in well with what the Lord is impressing on my heart this Lent about His will becoming my desire and delight.

The highest perfection consists not in interior favors or in great raptures or in visions, or in the spirit of prophecy, but in the bringing of our wills so closely in conformity with the will of God that, as soon as we realize that He wills anything, we desire it ourselves with all our might, and take the bitter with the sweet, knowing that to be His Majesty’s will.
— Teresa of Avila

From our Archives: Index of all the 2006 Anglican Bloggers Lenten Devotional posts

Back in 2006 Lent & Beyond hosted a special Lenten blogging collaboration by Anglican bloggers around the U.S. and some from overseas. The series produced a wealth of wonderful devotional reflections. All the posts were over at our now-defunct original blogsite and it would be very time-consuming to try and repost each entry here. However, I believe most of the posts should be accessible via the Internet Archive site (aka the Wayback machine).

Below I’ve posted a copy of the Index post to the entire 2006 Lenten Devotionals series, with each link pointing to an archived version of the original post. I trust this should make it possible to read most of these entries. Please comment if you are having trouble accessing something.

***

Index: 2006 Anglican Bloggers’ Lenten Devotional Series

Filed under: Meditations & Devotions, Anglican Bloggers Lenten Devotionals, Lent Resources, Lent 2007 — Karen B.

Way overdue. Here is an index of all the entries in last year’s Anglican Bloggers Lenten Devotional Series which we hosted here on Lent & Beyond. Entries are listed in chroniogical order as they were originally posted.

***

Shrove Tuesday
Captain Yips: Making Room in Our Imaginations for God

Ash Wednesday
Karen B: Seek the Lord and Live

All Too Common: Taking Up Our Cross Daily
Townsend Waddill: It’s Just Not Fair
Bob Hackendorf: Packing Light for the Journey of Lent

Lent Week 1:
Fr. Binks: A Meditation for the First Sunday in Lent
Rick Harris: I Tremble
Jeffrey Steel: Remember Lot’s Wife
Richard Kew: Are we like Joseph’s brothers?
Pat Dague: Thirst
David Ould: Being Molded by the Scriptures
Townsend Waddill: When Dreams Seemingly Don’t Come True
Eric Swensson: Praising God (on the way to the killing ground)

Lent Week 2:
Fr. Binky / Dr. Robert Crouse: A Sermon for Lent2
Rick Harris: Fools for Christ
From “Prydain”: Alexander McLaren on “David’s Cry for Pardon”
Jason Kranzusch: G.I. Joe on Pilgrimage
from All Too Common: Called to Devotion to God
Fr. Will Brown: “Peace! Be Still!”
Todd Granger: Jesus’ Victory Over Sin, Evil & Death

Lent Week 3:
Fr. Binky: “Like Flint, Not Jell-O”
Matt Kennedy: Holy Despair
Tim Fountain: Meditation for St. Joseph’s Day
Wilt Thou Forgive? — John Donne
Fr. Patrick Allen: Recalled to the Ordinary Things
Matt Kennedy: Dedicating Food to Idols
Rob Eaton: Face the Darkness, Bear the Light
Jill Woodliff: Called by His Name
Rob Eaton: A Chosen Life is Still Work

Lent Week 4:
Lenten Meditation: “Mothering Sunday”
Bishop Schofield on Repentance
Chip Johnson: Just Desserts
Matt Kennedy: Peter’s Cross
Captain Yips: A Contrite Heart
Todd Granger–The Name of this love is Jesus

Lent Week 5:
Fr. Binks – “Busted Sticks & Smokey Wicks”
Rather Not Blog: The Tyranny of Death
Unplugged
Captain Yips: Scattered Secrets
Douglas LeBlanc: Too much treasure on Earth
Jason Kranzusch: The Seven Words
Townsend Waddill: James, John & Us
Tim Fountain: Past Due

HOLY WEEK:

Palm Sunday:
David Ould: Enter the King

Holy Week: Monday – Wednesday
Rather Not: Lamentations
Pontifications: Holy Week Devotional links
Beautiful, Spit-covered faces
Clueless Christian: “Dust thou art…”

Maundy Thursday:
Jeffrey Steel: Maundy Thursday

Good Friday:
Good Friday: Strike the Shepherd and…
Sermon for Good Friday
David McCarthy: Eclipsed?

Holy Saturday
David Ould: Christ’s Descent into Hell
Brad Drell’s Easter Vigil Meditation