together, day 2

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:
All praise and thanks to thee, most merciful God, for adopting us as thine own children, for incorporating us into thy holy Church, and for making us worthy to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.  Grant us, we pray, all things necessary for our common life, and bring us all to be of one heart and mind within thy holy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 133

Scripture for the Day: Hebrews 10:19-25

Reading for Reflection: 

     Let him who cannot be alone beware of community.  Alone you stood before God when he called you; alone you had to answer the call; alone you had to struggle and pray. 

     But the reverse is also true: Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.  Into the community you were called; in the community of the called you bear your cross, you struggle, you pray.

     If you scorn the fellowship of the brethren, you reject the call of Jesus Christ, and thus your solitude can only be hurtful to you.

     Only in the fellowship do we learn to be rightly alone and only in aloneness do we learn to live rightly in the fellowship. (Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

 

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Blessed Be the Tie That Binds

 

Blessed be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like that to that above.

 

Before our Father's throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one
Our comforts and our cares.

 

We share each other's woes,
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.

 

When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.

 

This glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way;
While each in expectation lives,
And longs to see the day.

 

From sorrow, toil and pain,
And sin, we shall be free,
And perfect love and friendship reign
Through all eternity.

Closing Prayer:
O God, fountain of love, pour love into our souls, that we may love those whom you love with the love you give us, and think and speak about them tenderly, meekly, lovingly; and so loving our brothers and sisters for your sake, may we grow in your love, and live in your love, that by living in your love we may live in you; for Jesus Christ’s sake. (E. B. Pusey, quoted from Classic Christian Prayers by Owen Collins)