Liturgical Prayer for Sunday, July 27, 2008

Thanks to Nate Worden for leading Sunday morning Prayer last week using a reading from Soren Kierkegaard as a liturgical outline. May we come into His Presence!

Reading: I Kings 3:5-12

Father in Heaven!
What is humanity without Thee!
What is all we know, vast accumulation though it be, but a chipped fragment if we do not know Thee!
What is all our striving, could it even encompass a world, but a half-finished work if we do not know
Thee!

Reading: Psalm 105:1-5

Thee the One, who is One and who is All!

Reading: Matthew 13:44-46

So may You give to the intellect wisdom to comprehend that one thing;
to the heart sincerity to receive this understanding;
to the will purity that wills only one thing;

May You grant in prosperity perseverance to will one thing;
amid distraction, collectedness to will one thing;
in suffering, patience to will one thing.

Oh, You that gives both the beginning and the completion,
may You early, at the dawn of day, give to the young person the resolution to will one thing.
As the day wanes, may You give to the old person a renewed remembrance of their first resolution,
that the first may be like the last, the last like the first,
in possession of a life that has willed only one thing.

Reading: Psalm 119:129-136

Alas, but this has indeed not come to pass.
Something has come in between.
The separation of sin lies in between.
Each day, and day after day, something is being placed in between:
Delay
Blockage
Interruption
Delusion
Corruption.
So in this time of repentance may You give the courage once again to will one thing.

Silence/Reflection

Oh, You that gives both the beginning and the completion, give victory in the day of need so that
What neither our burning wish nor our determined will may attain to
May be granted unto us in the sorrowing of repentance:
To will one thing.

Reading: Romans 8:26-39



* Prayer adapted from the opening paragraph of Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing by Soren Kierkegaard.