prayer, day 6

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

Opening Prayer:
Lord, I know not what I ought to ask of you.  You only know what I need.  You know me better than I know myself.  O Father, give to your child what he himself knows not how to ask.  Teach me to pray.  Pray yourself in me.
                                                                  ~Archbishop Francois Fenelon

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 84

Scripture for the Day: Philippians 1:3-11

Reading for Reflection:

There is no such thing as prayer in which "nothing is done" or "nothing happens," although there may well be a prayer in which nothing is perceived or felt or thought.
     All real interior prayer, no matter how simple it may be, requires the conversion of our whole self to God, and until this has been achieved—either actively by our own efforts or passively by the action of the Holy Spirit—we do not enter into contemplation and we cannot safely relax our efforts to establish contact with God.
     If we try to contemplate God without having turned the face of our inner self entirely in His direction, we will end up inevitably by contemplating ourselves.
(Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Praise to the Lord the Almighty

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,
The King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him,
For He is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear, Now to His temple draw near;
Praise Him in glad adoration.

Praise to the Lord,
Who over all things so wondrously reigneth,
Shelters thee under His wings,
Yea, so gently sustaineth!
Hast thou not seen
How all your longings have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?
 
Praise to the Lord,
Who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
Surely His goodness
And mercy here daily attend thee.
Ponder anew what the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriend thee.
 
Praise to the Lord,
O let all that is in me adore Him!
All that hath life and breath,
Come now with praises before Him.
Let the Amen sound from His people again,
Gladly for aye we adore Him.

Closing Prayer:
You stir us so that praising you may bring us joy, because you have made us and drawn us to yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. (Confessions by St. Augustine)