together, tuesday

Tuesday, July 1

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)

Scripture Reading 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

            

Closing Prayer: Make us children of quietness, and heirs of peace, O God.  Enkindle in us the fire of thy love, strengthen our weakness by thy power, bind us closely to thee and to each other in one firm and indissoluble bond.  Amen.  (from the Syrian Clementine Liturgy)