I am often asked why and how I write these prayers? One answer is another question: Why does a plum tree grow plums? If the prayers are of value to you, please use them and pass them on. If the prayers are delicious to you, take them in and savor them and keep them in the secret cave of your heart. Either way, my prayer is that these words are icons of grace, healing and transformation, perfectly open doors through which the Spirit can flow. Every blessing in the infinite Love of God, Peter Haas
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Daily Prayer for Monday, September 14th, 2009
Born in the mystery of your love, we begin this week surrendering all our confusions and questions to your explanatory power. We request personal attention for such situations that seem beguiling to our natural minds. Clothed in the raiment of luminous wisdom, we come under the power of the cross and so find insight to every dead end thought through a spiritual resurrection of our minds. Dead to the lie that we are separate from you, all of life becomes our teacher and we can laugh in the moment for you hold it all with a loving purpose. In perfect trust, we release and start our week with joy. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Sunday, September 13th, 2009
Resting in you, we remember ourselves, and remembering ourselves, we remember you. In this busy and noisy world, it is easy to forget. Today, we wish to rise in remembrance, receiving knowledge and wisdom in the silence of the heart. While there appear to be many paths for the soul, we feel drawn to this path of silence, quietly in love and gently in surrender. Solitary in silence you kiss our soul more awake and alive: Behold, this is my beloved. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Saturday, September 12th, 2009
Beloved of the heart: You have called us to listen. Draw us into the silence of prayer. Feed us with your living stillness. Calm us with your vast love. We request this very personal experience today. We gain strength through the community of stillness drawn together in prayer. Speak now to each of us by the mystery of your Spirit and Word and sacrament, reminding us as we go about our Saturday attentiveness that you are the Beloved of our hearts. Through Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.
Daily Prayer and Reflection for Friday, September 11th, 2009
© By Peter T. Haas
In solemn remembrance of moments seared with shock, we wish to connect more deeply with the meaning of life. We wish for personal knowledge and direct experience with purpose and meaning. It is in pain where we feel most vulnerable to despair and yet it is in despair where we may feel most surrendered to your presence. In this world of power and wealth, we grasp for more. When we feel the rope running out, we keep grasping at what we have and expect more to be given. But in moments of despair and shock, there is no more rope. That is when we must let go. We let go in utter surrender of self and total trust in you. It is a frightening prospect. Life exists to demonstrate this lesson. Over and over again, the human condition, full as it is with all its delights and terrors, can become our teacher. It can show us that meaning and purpose are available not in ourselves but in awakening to higher influences from above, from you.
Life on planet earth sometimes supports meaning and sometimes does not. War. Terror. Disease. Disaster. These are realities that demonstrate to us that the human condition is quite vulnerable and still in development. They are realities that test our confidence that there is any meaning at all to our human existence. When Jesus encountered the shock of his imminent death, he gave us a model: “forgive them for they know not what they do.” He also taught us the deepest truth of human existence: pain is rooted in resistance, and freedom is found in surrender and forgiveness, coupling “forgive them” with “not my will be done, but Thine.” Hidden in the heart of the human experience is Silence, and in the Silence we feel the living presence we tend to normally mute and mutate in much of our human endeavors. In the Silence, we find Presence, and in the Presence, we find Purpose. Silence is not emptiness. Nor is it impersonal. Silence, God’s first word, is the state of rest wherein love and wisdom rise. This is not learned. It is experienced.
Thus, in solemn remembrance of moments seared with shock, and in anticipation of moments to come that inevitably will dramatically teach us again that the human condition is still in serious development, and not to be trusted naively, we join with Christ in the silence of forgiveness and surrender, assured that we are being transformed from one degree of glory to another and that in Christ nothing can separate us from the loving presence of God – neither suffering, death or things to come. We are carriers of presence into the future being of humanity, carrying forth into a future that can be different if we would so awaken to the meaning of silence, forgiveness and surrender.
In holy awe for all saints and souls whose journey is now complete.
In and through Christ we pray. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Thursday, September 10th, 2009
Loving God of the Universe: Your journey to us has set us on journey to you. While it is tempting to think that we are all alone on this journey, in Christ we discover that you are always with us and that we are with each other, brothers and sisters of the human family. Amidst the many fearful ideas about the destiny of humanity, your journey to us in Christ assures us that our destiny is personal, loving and ends in peaceful community. We wish to prepare ourselves to be this spiritual community today, so helps us to see in each stranger something of ourselves and in so doing feel our common humanity and your uncommon grace pulsing through the galaxies even into the interstellar realm of this beating heart. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Wednesday, September 9th, 2009
Aware of the diminishing allure of this world and all its programs, we retreat deeper into the silence. There, beyond all books and beliefs, we simply feel your loving presence. “How can this be?” the soul shyly asks. “Because of me. It is me. It is all me,” the Spirit softly speaks. Are you in awe yet of the fact of your being? Do you realize who you are? Do you know whose you are? My God, my God, you have not forsaken me! All along it has been You, Thou, Thee – higher and deeper than thought, the everlasting hiddeness of love now revealed in Christ in whom my life is now found. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
Most glorious and perfect source of Love: You have created our soul and untied this secret strength to our visible body in the mystery of consummation. We are flesh and spirit. Because of this, we are hybrids, adapted for two worlds – this one of forms and feelings and your world of being, presence and pure light, life and love. Help us remember this as we return to our work and school rhythms this week. It has been a deeply restful summer. We have played. We have travelled. We have visited family and friends. We have dreamed under the summer stars. But today we return to our common rhythms, and we wish to live more alive than before because we have been awakened to the harmonious melody of our being one with you. In Christ, our soul and body also return – not to the territory of life, but to the realms of the Father, who is our most glorious and perfect source of love. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Sunday, August 30th, 2009
Abba: Embraced in the personal care that we feel in places of beauty, we feel more aware that nothing can separate us from your love in Christ. On this Sabbath day, we call to mind the beauty of wilderness and hold that view in our heart as an icon of your living presence. Silence. Solitude. Expansive spaces of graceful evergreens and birches – such places portend the essence of the soul where you invite us into deeper love and life. Through Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Saturday, August 29th, 2009
Beloved Strength of Life: We wish to live today in the strong circle of your way, truth and life. But, especially, we focus today on our need to experience an inward conversion into beings of truth. Help us see ourselves more clearly today – the negative and the positive. We do not want to live in the darkness of denial. We want to live in the light of insight. Embraced in the center of your encompassing truth, we discover that in you there is no circumference. You can take it all. You embrace all dimensions of our self and awaken us further into your way, truth and life. This is why you gave us Christ – to show us that Thy love pours into this sphere of life, intersecting as a cross, embracing our humanity – all of it. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Saturday, August 22nd, 2009
Abba: Under the shadow of grace, we discover more and more the unfolding largeness of your love. Where can we go where you are not with us? Who can we be, where you will not meet us? Show us our fears, that we may not be driven by them. Show us where our hearts close down to love, that we may learn to open to it in the presence of fear and worry. Thank you for Jesus, our Way-Shower. Taught in the silence of the heart, we learn the nature of listening for your Word so to be glistening vessels of grace. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Friday, August 21st, 2009
Beloved: Teach our hearts to love deeply. Open to thy grace our hearts melt, so to flow into the lives of those we live and work with. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Thursday, August 20th, 2009
Most Loving and Holy Trinity: We wish to feel the fire of Thy presence radiating through us, burning away nodes of personality that fester negativity and deplete our force for love and joy. Do unto us what we cannot do for ourselves: heal, transform, overcome. Such gifts are enough for us, Lord. We feel your living presence with us and surrender our ways to Thy way. Through Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
During these days of return, we also include our hearts. Beloved One: bless all students returning to school. Bless all teachers returning to teach. Bless all leaders returning to lead. Bless all beggars returning for more. Bless all workers returning for labor. Bless all bodies and souls returning to the earth. Bless all hearts returning to you in surrender and recognition that our programs for happiness only take us so far, but your gift of grace takes us all the way. And not just part of us. All of us. You take all of us – thoughts, feelings and body. You love us and so we return to you. Through Christ our Lord and Way-Shower we pray. Amen.
Daily Gospel Reading Matthew 20. 1 – 16
Daily Prayer for Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
Open to your Love, we feel you teaching us through the simple movements of our daily lives. Certain that you are with us, we trust that all things today will work together for our good benefit. In and through Christ we pray. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Monday, August 17th, 2009
Gracious and Merciful Heavenly Father: Pour out your Spirit upon us today that we might feel your presence in the opening movements of this new week. Drawn into the holiness of Love and the strength of community, we unmask fear and worry as useless and empty pursuits. We choose the gift of your Love, and in this Love we are more than conquerors; through Christ, with Christ, in Christ, in the unity of the Spirit. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Sunday, August 16th, 2009
Most Loving God: Awake now to the gift of life, we wish to do the one necessary thing – to turn and soften to you and your influences. Amidst all the alternatives we have to choose from, we choose delight in you. Your grace and love are awakening us, turning us, softening us, and like sun-flowers we respond in kind to the warmth of your light, love and life. In and through Christ, the Light of the world. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Saturday, August 15th, 2009
Living and Loving God: I wish to live the mystery of Christ, not just know or speak about it. I wish for your Spirit to take hold of my life and liberate me from my fears, anxieties, demands and desire for control. I wish to make Christ alive in me through relationships of love, respect and self-giving to others. Lord, I wish to live at the growing tip of transformation so to no longer be the person I have always been, but to become the person you have destined me in Christ to be. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Friday, August 14th, 2009
Abba: Thank you for holding us together in Love as we grow. Thank you for calling to each of us so that we know with certitude the direct experience of this love and growth. At the close of this work week, open our hearts to receive you living Word deeply. Sustain us in our life efforts so to be refreshed by your Spirit in worship and rest this weekend. Through Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Thursday, August 13th, 2009
Daily Prayer for Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
“Take delight in the Lord and the desires of your heart will be given.” Psalm 37.4
Beloved Holy Trinity: Increase our desire to delight in you. Cleanse the filter of our will so that it desires what delights you. Fill our minds with impressions that inspire delight and wonder so that we live in correspondence with your pulsing heart of love, radiating the beauty and joy of thy intentions for the ray of creation. Through Christ Jesus our Lord we pray. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Tuesday, August 11th, 2009
Loving and Holy God: Thank you for the gift of life. Thank you for the rhythms of rest and work. Thank you for the felt experience of love. Today, we request the vision to observe in ourselves what we so dislike in others. Give us the grace of transformation so that we cease our resistance to love in the form of judgment and dislike of others. Expand our capacity to bear and share love. We know that something must become more like a child in us if we are to enter your kingdom. May this process begin with our vanity and pride. Through Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Monday, August 10th, 2009
The house of my soul awaits your indwelling. There are rooms that need reordering and dimensions of selfhood requiring renovation. Aware more completely of the reality of my soul and selfhood, I – the I that observes its ways of being – waits for your arrival, only to discover you are already here with me. It is I who have forgotten the knowledge of God and the knowledge of self, and in so doing lived as if I were the only one home. But, Lord how can this be when I dwell in you and you in me? Amen.
Daily Prayer for Sunday, August 9th, 2009
A pastoral prayer for you: The light of God surrounds us. The life of God sustains us. The love of God enfolds us. The power of God protects us. The presence of God nurtures us. The promises of God inspire us. We are not alone. Our life is not meaningless. In the beginning was meaning. God is the fullness of meaningfulness and through the Word of Christ we partake in the meaningful life. And all is well. We are precious in his sight.
Every blessing in God’s love, Peter T. Haas
Daily Prayer for Saturday, August 8th, 2009
Lord Jesus Christ: Pour out your Spirit upon each of us today so that we may gain further insight into unconscious patterns of thinking and doing expressed in all our disliking. Reveal to each of us the negative thoughts and feelings and sensations related to our mechanical disliking of ourselves, our situations, our loved ones, our friends, our life and anyone or anything that comes into our field of perception that we wish were different. Lord Jesus, help us to see how quickly programs of dislike download onto our thinking-feeling system. Through this increased awareness, remind us that such thoughts and feelings are not Love; nor the God intended use of our spirit-soul-body system. Instead, draw us further into the freedom of consciously chosen love. We wish to not be robots of mechanical negative reactivity. We wish to cease our useless acting out from fear and dislike. We wish to love and be loved and in so doing share in the inheritance of the saints who learned how to truly love thy neighbor. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Thursday, August 6th, 2009
Most Loving Trinity: We contemplate the nature of our relationships today. In the silence of this prayer, we wish for the direct experience of consciously chosen love. We wish to understand that the particular relationship that comes to mind is not about me or her or him, it is about love and our relationship with love for love. Everything now changes. It all about, for, in, to, and with love. Awake now to the presence of love, we can observe our negative thoughts and feelings about self and about the other in our life and declare in your love that those negative thoughts and feelings are not reality. They are just smokescreens of selfhood. In the light of your love, we begin to see clearly who we are and who the other is. Give us this grace of being love in relationship today. Through Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Wednesday, August 5th, 2009
The light of God surrounds us. The love of God enfolds us. The power of God protects us. The presence of God watches over us. All is well. Lord God, use my mind this day to bring love, joy and compassion into the sphere of my relationships. May the negative thoughts and feelings that swell within me be observed and dissolved by the increasing presence of your love and wisdom which brings increased consciousness of being, doing, feeling and moving. Thank you for every person and situation in this life that is helping me trust in you. While not easy, Lord, this life teaches me not to believe in it, but to believe in you. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Monday, August 3rd, 2009
In the beauty of this August Monday morning we bask in the knowledge that You, Most Blessed Source of Love, are for us in silent witness the ground from which we live and move and have our being. Let this new week be a territory for our soul’s expansion in faith, hope and love for Thee and all others. Ceasing our useless acting out from fear, we consent to the awareness of your providence and Thy vast, unending presence manifesting this very moment in and through our life hidden in Christ. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Saturday, August 1st, 2009
Most gracious and loving God: It is you we long for today in the midst of all our ways. As life rises and falls, you are calling us into your love to be for us as we are for you, the beloved. Take our pains, past and present and our troubles, real or imagined, and breathe your love into our mind freeing it from all worry or doubt. You are the everlasting strength of provident provision and we feel your love in these conscious words offered in silence, hidden in the heart where all things are possible through Christ Jesus or Lord. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Friday, July 31st, 2009
Abba: You are the instant, constant and overflowing expression of life itself, present in our hearts saying “Thou art mine. This day I have begotten Thee. I am constantly and instantly begetting Thee. Your life doesn’t belong to you. It is my life.” From your infinite fullness you are pouring yourself into the world. You are the dynamic, constant manifestation of the breath of life, and we partake in this abundant life. Thank you Lord! How else can we respond but with praise and prayer? May this truth shape the choices of our days and the destiny of our lives. Through Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Wednesday, July 29th, 2009
Most Radiant Face of Christ: Today we will look to you Lord Jesus Christ, and in your face see the glory of the only begotten, radiant for us and our transformation; a light for the darkness. The vast, infinite universe is met by this vast, infinite direct experience of your light, life and love. Participating with you in this radiance, we find our purpose and feel our destiny as worship. Blessings are pouring down upon us in every possible way, seen and unseen. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
Holy One Above: We give thanks for the gift of life and for our experiences in life which remind us not to believe in life, but to believe in you. For all the challenges we face and in all the problems we encounter, we call down your power and alternative laws today. Miracles are your laws showing up in this lower-world of life governed by the predictable laws of cause and effect. But your miracles operate under a different, and higher set of rules. This is why, in Christ, all things are possible. We thank you for this knowledge and we look forward to verifying it in our direct, personal experience today. Praise be to Thee, Miracle of Love in Trinity. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Monday, July 27th, 2009
Here we are. Beloveds of the great lover; who see his/her kiss in the beauty of the earth, in the words of scripture, in the bread and cup of the Eucharist and in our direct experience with Jesus Christ by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. We are having a Summer time love. We feel your love Lord, through and through, beyond all appearances to the contrary, you are with us and we are with you. In your love we live and breathe and have our being. Now this is something to sing about on a Monday morning in late July! Amen.
Daily Prayer for Saturday, July 25th, 2009
Most Gracious and Loving Shepherd of Souls: On this Saturday, tend to our souls. Awaken. Heal. Illumine. Life is more than our senses report to us. Life is hidden in Christ. Life is abundant in Christ. Our soul knows this; even when our mind and body may not. What does it profit a person to gain the whole world, but loose the soul? Yes, Lord, we remember your teaching today and request that you tend to our souls. Through Christ we pray. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Friday, July 24th, 2009
Most Loving Trinity: We begin this day open hearted and open minded assured that in Christ nothing can separate us from your love. We know this because there is infinite love between the Father and the Son, and since we are in the Son, we can never not be in the infinite love of the Father. Let us sit quietly with this knowledge today. Let it remind us all of who we really are and what the purpose of our life truly is. Praise be to Thee Most Loving Trinity! Amen.
Daily Prayer for Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009
The poet Rumi puts our prayer this way: “Live in the One who created the prophets, else you’ll be like a caravan fire left to flare itself out alone beside the road.” Lord God, we wish to live in you today. Whatever else may be happening in life, whoever else may be inspiring us, we wish to live in you. Thank you for Jesus who shows what a life lived in you looks like. We don’t want to flare out alone. We want to be consumed like the burning bush in with the communion of saints. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
Beloved Source of Love and Light: Commend to me peace and illumination to know and experience the Kingdom of God, and all the bliss of the unitive way. Guard me. Guide me. Let there be no separation from you to me and from me to all that is. To experience the abundance of light, life and love in Christ is the purpose of my life. I consent to this and await opportunities to radiate to and for the blessing of another. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Monday, July 20th, 2009
Ever living, Ever Loving Trinity: Touch our Soul with Your Love and raise each of us into a fuller understanding and a deeper capacity for loving. We wish to meet the days of this new week with lion-hearted courage. Beyond appearances, the soul of each human awaits this touch of love, again and again. We are more than our bodies. We are more than our brains. We are soul-beings built for Your love. In Jesus Christ, You show us ourselves and we have not forgotten. You love humanity. We feel this, and we roar with praise. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Saturday, July 18th, 2009
Abba: Thank you for the love we feel in our families and in the family of faith. Together in your love we are never alone. Together, fears are overstepped by faith. In and through Christ we pray. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Friday, July 17th, 2009
Love who is here with us: We belong to you. We wish to let this knowledge become more of our experience through Jesus Christ, Master of Light, Life and Love. Amen.”
Daily Prayer for Thursday, July 16th, 2009
Lord You are near to the brokenhearted and lift up the crushed in spirit. In this life, we often do not understand why things happen. We feel small in the scale of things. Yet You love each one of us and our uniqueness is holy to You. You have created our hearts to love you and our spirit to feel you. Thank you for Jesus who reveals our selfhood to us and just how much You love our humanity. Through Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
Lord of Heaven and Earth: We request the practical grace of psychological transformation today by the power of your Spirit who is renewing our minds. Lord, let life become our classroom. Give us eyes to see who we are as we react to all that comes into our sphere of perception today. Help us observe our habitual thoughts, feelings and movements. As we look up into the ray of creation, awaken us to the truth that sets us free from our mechanical reactivity to life and other people, especially our negative reactivity. You can transform us and release us from our mechanical reactivity. We request the gift of inner separation from negative thoughts and feelings. They are just occurring, they are not us. I am not angry. I am having an angry thought. I am a child of God. Help me remember that I am not all that I think about myself or other people or my life, how it is or is not. Lord of Heaven and Earth, help us to not define ourselves by our self perception by the ever deepening awareness that we are perfectly formed in your image and drenched in healing grace through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
Abba: I have awoken on this mid-summer day to a question. I am wondering what more You can show me? I am curious how much I have closed the door to You, thinking I already have all I need. Last night, I watched the Big Dipper traipse across the sky. I wondered what that dipper is pouring down upon the earth? Could it be that You want to drench us with wisdom and love? Could it be that Your dipper is overflowing, ladling out to us influences we long ago fell asleep to? Awake now, I don’t want to miss a thing. I’ll use my hands for a cup to catch Your heavenly expresso. Fill me up till overflowing and turn all my water into really, really good wine. With Christ, In Christ, Through Christ, in the unity of the Spirit. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Monday, July 13th, 2009
Most Loving Trinity: You give attention to the smallest details, my words, and to the greatest, the universe. All my words are counterfeit, but you love them anyway. Everything I say is plagiarized. What else can I say that you have not already heard? So, I stop talking and give you the silence of my heart. In the silence, I wish to feel my soul and see its exquisite uniqueness. Now is not too late. Your grace is always showing up right on schedule. Today, I will not ignore you. I will not ignore my soul because I know your eye is on this sparrow in flight, looking for a nest to call home. And it’s You. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Sunday, July 12th, 2009
Most Loving and Compassionate God: As we gather for worship and take rest today from work demands and life routines, we wish for light-heartedness and joyful detachment. Deflate our spheres of self-important concerns and fill them with increasing compassion. We wish to rise in lightness of being by your Spirit. What we are really after, Lord, and that we blush to admit, is that we really want your love. We really want to be love. We want it all, Lord. Love. Love. Love. The Most Holy Trinity of Love. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Saturday, July 11th, 2009
Loving One in Whom We Rest, Father, Son and Holy Spirit: Drawn into your Consuming Love, we dare to ask, to seek, to be silent, to knock, and to know when the door is opened to us. Inside this new love, we die to live. You have opened the prison door, and we will not stay. We will close both eyes so we can see. We will close our mouth so to be fed. We will stop talking so to be heard. It is ok we don’t know what to do. Guide us. Help us. We don’t want the spoiled wine. We want the vintage you have been saving for that special day. We want your hand pressed wine. We want You. We are shy lovers, but don’t be fooled. We can’t stop feeling you. Lord, you are the truth and the dare. Our answer is yes, yes, yes. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Friday, July 10th, 2009
Abba, help us remember. Help us remember you and who you have created us to be. When our thoughts become negative toward others or ourselves, help us to remember you. It is you who is calling us home from our wandering thoughts. You have given us guides to follow. Your Word is a light to our path. The beauty of your creation declares the way. In you, everywhere we step, it holds. Thank you for calling us into your kingdom of consciousness to live with the lights on in all we are within and all we do. And when we remember we return home to feel your embrace and hear your voice declares: all is well, let’s party. Praise to the One in whom we live and move and have our being, holding it all together even when it appears to all be falling apart. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Thursday, July 9th, 2009
Most Gracious and Loving God: Speak now in the silence to our hearts. At the center of our being, is this vessel of life. Thank you for the gift of life that happens in us without the lease effort on our part. It beats from the beginning. Our heart is the symbol of your love to and with us; filling us with life; animating our being with warmth. When our hearts are broken we feel it in our bodies. Everything seems wrong. When our hearts are exulting, we feel it too, and everything feels so right. It is you that is calling us to listen to our heart, to feel your life in us, to know that you are as close as breath and sure as our pulse. It is you that is living us. And we love you.
Daily Prayer for Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
God of the prophets and our Lord Jesus Christ: This infinite outpouring of rescuing love that we are experiencing in our union with Christ is changing our lives. We are coming under different influences. Life and all its happenings is losing its power over us and you are lifting us up and placing us under the influence of your outpouring Word and Spirit. Your love, felt and filling us, is changing us, slowly but certainly. We know you hear our prayer for help. We feel you lifting us up into new realms of knowledge and awareness of your presence right here with us. Praise be to you and your infinite outpouring of rescuing love. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
We request the gift of discernment today. Facing choices and dilemmas, we need your wisdom. Open the eyes of our heart to see beyond the physical senses. Open the eyes of our mind to know beyond our thinking. By your Word and Spirit, train our intuition. We wish to be messengers of your love today. We wish to sense the pain of others and not just complain about our own. As we surrender to you, flow through us with your life giving presence. Your power is at work in the world today. We wish to syncopate our being with your doing. Each person and every moment is an opportunity to delve under the surface of things as they appear and offer your love and wisdom that truly is. Your love is bigger. We will not live in fear. Through Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Monday, July 6th, 2009
Beloved: We know you are listening. You always listen. Pour out your Spirit upon us this day. We have much to share, but we don’t always have the words. So, thank you for listening. Thank you for the gift of life. Thank you for the opportunity to rest and retreat with family and friends over a long weekend. As we return to our work rhythms, strengthen our inner being with new knowledge of your ancient ways. Teach us more of who you are that we would know more who we can be. In and through Christ our Lord who shows us the way. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Saturday, July 4th, 2009
In your free, crazy love, you invite us into a life-long waltz set to the tune of silence and grace. Take the lead. Contemplating freedom, we confess that it is our will that needs healing. We are tired of being out-of-step. We are burdened by the awareness of our chosen missteps. We feel out of sync, and this exhausts. Waltzing was meant to be joyful, yet we seem glum. Upon reflection, we are beginning to understand that it is our will that keeps us from true freedom. It is our will that wants, needs, holds on to, keeps, rejects, chooses, avoids, evades. So, waltz our will into the silence of your loving presence. Woo us away from the clamor and cadence of all our willful-doings. Draw us into the restfulness of being in you. We shall wait for your lead. As we wait, give us visions of what our future can be in you and see that we are free not to be who we have been: “Thy will be done.” Through Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Friday, July 3rd, 2009
From the heart this day I will live. You, O Lord Christ, are showing me the way. Surrendered, I rest my head upon the infinite. Humbled, I call upon thee. You are the dimension of reality where all things are possible. You are power beyond imagination. You are my center. You are my connectedness. From the heart, this day I will live. Empowered, I move out into wider orbs with you love. Like light, I will diffuse darkness where I am and where I go. Can it be Lord that life is this simple? To rest and shine? Ceasing my useless acting out from fear, I let go in the knowledge that you don’t. Remembering, I stand in the truth that nothing can separate me from our love in Christ. Thank you. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
Beloved Wellspring of Light, Life and Love: For the beauty of long-light filled summer days, we thank you. For the gift of life, we thank you. For the wonder of love, we thank you. We wish to feel your risen presence with us in all we do today. Draw our attention to the storehouse of love you have prepared for us in the beauty of the earth and in union with Christ. As we travel and gather with family and friends, we request safe journeys and joyful interactions. When provoked to judgment, anger or frustration with spouse, children or family, meet us with your loving-kindness. We wish to be patient, slow to anger and conveyors of your peace. Enable our wills to love. In all things, you are with us and will never forsake us, close as breath; we are awakening to the depth of your love to which you are forever drawing us. Thank you that our earthly experience can become our spiritual classroom. To the praise of your beautiful light, life and love. Amen
Daily Prayer for Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
Most Loving and Holy One: Thank you for awakening us today. We will not squander this gift of consciousness You have given us. We wish to seek You today. We wish to feel Your presence. We wish to be given higher knowledge and wisdom in Christ. We will not just live from our personality today. We will not just live according to our senses, but we will live from our Soul. From the place in our inner being that knows it can grow toward You. From the place that knows and feels nothing can separate us from You or one another. You are beckoning us. We are listening. We consent to what You are doing in and through us. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
Beloved One: Today, we consent to you. Although we have countless options for who we will be and what we will do, we seek your counsel and direction. Drench our minds with wisdom. Clothe us with integrity. Feed us with truth. Lead us with goodness and illuminate us with beauty. We are your people. Our inheritance in you is vast. You are our Lord and we love you. Lead us. Help us. Heal us. In Christ, through Christ, with Chris, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Monday, June 29th, 2009
Awake now to the purpose of our lives in Christ, we wish to receive clear guidance for this day. No longer waves tossed here and there, we shall be like the plants who constantly turn and follow the sun seeking the life giving light. In your presence Lord is fullness of joy. In your life we truly live. As we begin a new work week, remind us of the solar-sized purpose you have for each of us. We are not just consuming, productive creatures. We are light-receivers and bearers. We photosynthesize your light and you turn it into love for the world to breath. We are your receptors and transformers. You alchemize in us water into wine, hope into joy, sin into God-directed living. Thank you for awakening us this day to our purpose in Christ. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Friday, June 26th, 2009
For all the blessings of this day, we give you thanks, O God. You journey with us. You are our source, middle and destiny. At the close of this week, we celebrate all you have taught us in the day to day experiences of life. Give us hind-sight to see all we have been and fore-sight to see all we can be in Thee, our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. You long for each of us to enter into your rest. And so we do, breath by breath, into the heart of your love in prayer. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Thursday, June 25th, 2009
Lord Jesus Christ: Build in us your home. Build our hearts on the strength of your Word. Lead us away from all other foundations of sand, and establish our inner lives upon the pillars of your strength and wisdom. You have shown us the way home, it is the way of consent to Abba and surrender to Spirit. Show us visions of your future and perspectives of our past, so to live with unshakable hope now. Amen.
*Adapted for today’s Gospel reading from Matthew 7.21-29.
Daily Prayer for Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
Beloved One: By your Spirit, you are working in our lives revealing the tender places in need of healing and teaching us more of who you are and who we can be. Bless each one in this contemplative circle of friends today. Speak your words of favor and blessing over our heads and anoint us with spiritual power for living in this world of laws. As John the Baptist announced long ago, may we too be forerunners of your life-giving word and presence pointing the way to others not so much with our words but with our transformed being. In and to and through Christ we pray. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
Most Merciful and Grace-Full God: Thank you for the gift of life. We feel your life feeding us in the shining summer morning stars and in you written word. It is you we long for and it is you calling to us. Cleanse our senses that we might hear you more clearly today. We request the ancient wisdom to help us think, feel and act today. As you transform our inward being, bring about the corresponding victory over all that has previously defeated us; for the glory of the risen Christ shining in the heavens. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Monday, June 22nd, 2009
Lord Jesus Christ: We begin this new week with the recognition that you have prepared for us a feast of joy in your Life. Feed us with your Word and heal us with your Love. Draw us into unhurried rhythms of grace. Speak to our inward being with the sound of silence. Where we find unrest and disquiet in the world, may we become vessels of your light, life and love. Thank you for the gift of life in you. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Sunday, June 21st, 2009
Most Graceful and Loving One: We wish to feel you in the long-light of this Summer Solstice Day. You have so ordered the universe that in this tiny but preferred place on planet earth, you took great care to make it good for us and our well being. Today, we celebrate the strength of the sun in its full summer orb, and in its light we wish to see the strength of your Son in his full glory shining in scriptures, in nature and in one another. Glory be to God in whom there is no darkness and through whom we know Christ, the Light of the World. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Saturday, June 20th, 2009
Most Merciful and Loving God: We greet this Saturday with gratitude. Our days our full and we give thanks for moments of rest, and anticipate our day of rest and worship tomorrow. It is you that we long for and in your presence is fullness of joy. Thank you for the people in our life who manifest your presence to us. Draw us into your Spirit that we too might manifest your presence, joy and peace. Through Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Friday, June 19th, 2009
Holy and Loving God: It is you that is calling us to come home. Open our hearts and minds to hear your voice clearly. We consent to your invitation, Lord Jesus, and thank you for showing us the way, the life and the truth. Pour out your Spirit upon us today, that we might feel your loving presence and taste your life-directing Word feeding us on our journey in and to you. Through Christ our Living Lord we pray. Amen.
Daily prayer for Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
Oh My Holy Trinity: In your self-giving love, one to the other, Creator-Redeemer-Healer; Father, Son, Holy Spirit, we see the picture of our destiny. You are calling each of us today to live in your Trinitarian life. Where we discover resistance to love in our selves, grant us wisdom to observe it and in your grace dissolve it. You have created us for freedom, for community, for love. Heal our self-directed nature that closes down to others, and raise to life in us a God-directed nature that opens up to expanding sphere of all life. Through Christ our lord we pray. Amen.
Daily prayer for Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
Lord Jesus Christ: It is your voice we listen for in the silence and the storms. Help us to recognize, remember and receive your life-giving Word in the mystery and meanderings of our oh so human experience. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Monday, June 15th, 2009
O Singer of the Stars: Wrapped in the warmth of summer evening breezes, we feel your wonder-making power and tender-touching love. How is it that this is happening? How do we find ourselves embraced in the wonder of warmth – love’s warmth? In the pulse of life? Yes Beloved one! We feel you in the wind. We see you in the stars. We partake of you in the Word, spoken and enacted in the Eucharist. The universe is speaking, the fullness of life in summer is singing. I love you. I love you. I love. I am the Life that breathes in you. I am the life that lives for you. I am life. I am. Amen.
Daily prayer for Sunday, June 14th, 2009
Most Holy and Loving God: Bless our rest-taking this day, O Lord. Draw us into the inner silence of our heats and lift us up to new levels of being and understanding in and through our union with Christ. By your Spirit, use every relationship, event and experience in our lives to awaken us to who we are and who you are forming us to be. Through Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Saturday, June 13th, 2009
Living Breath: We feel your love in words of scripture, in the touch of sacrament and in the beauty of creation. On this Saturday, replenish us by the warmth of summer. As the daylight nears its longest reach, so too drench the world in the light and breath of your re-creative, healing power. For every dimension of our self that needs to be raised, healed, and made whole, meet us with this Loving Light, unveiled in face of Christ, then, now and always. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Friday, June 12th, 2009
Abba: We lift our hearts up to you with the knowledge that you can pour your love into us. As you do this in us today, we know that we are all united together in this gift. That we are not alone. That you are with us, and that we are your people. Whatever happens today, we request an increase of perspective. Help us to see not just from our own perspective or even just from others, but from higher levels of being in Christ. In your love, activate in us the change of mind and heart that you call us to through Christ. With joy and thanksgiving for the gift of life and work, family and friends, church and Christian community, we pray. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Thursday, June 11th, 2009
Lord God of All Creation: Thank you for calling us to you through the beauty of the earth, the voice of your prophets and the felt presence of your love through one another. Give to each one of us the mind of Christ. Heal in us those things that hold us back from experiencing your purpose for us as heirs of Christ. We surrender our thoughts, feelings, words and actions to you knowing that you love us just as we are and are calling us deeper into who you long for us to be. Thank you for the gift of being here and human. Amen.
Daily Prayer for Wednesday, June 10th, 2009
Beloved: In the world, we are busy, but in you, we are at rest. Give to each of us the taste of your sweetness; the honey of your wisdom; the agave of your love. Heal us from our thoughts and feelings that divide us from you and others and renew our minds with your Word of Life. In Your most Holy and Precious Name. Amen.
