Beloved Friends-
Over the course of these remaining Fridays of Lent leading up to Holy Week I am going to offer a series of prayers for you to use during the week in any way that feels “good.” As you know we have been thinking and talking Goodness as our Lenten theme this year using the inspiring writings of former Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter the Rev. Mpho Tutu. These prayers come from another wonderful resource that I commend to you as well, Calling on God: Inclusive Christian Prayers for Three Years of Sundays by Peter Bankson & Deborah Sokolove.
For each Sunday of our 3-year Lectionary cycle of readings, the collection offers 3 prayers: an Opening Prayer, a Thanksgiving and Praise Prayer and a Petition and Intercessory Prayer. I will be sharing one of those prayers for each week over these coming weeks as an offering to be used in your personal devotions.
May it help you slow down for a few minutes each week, open yourself to the immensity of God’s goodness inside of you and connect you deeply to those places in need of tender care.
And may you never forget that you are loved,
Lisa
For the Fourth Sunday in Lent:
Prayer of Thanksgiving and Praise
God of life and love,
Holy God of every living thing,
wonderful mother of the daffodil,
imaginative Creator of the whale and the ant;
we know your being is beyond our wildest imagination,
and still we try to find the words to say how great you are.
We celebrate the ways you satisfy our hunger for community,
by bringing us together with other to form this community of faith,
to celebrate our lives individually and together,
learning more about you each day as we travel together.
We give you thanks for our shared lives,
that we can celebrate in different ways each week together.
We praise for the power of forgiveness
that makes it possible for each of us to start again.
Holy God of mystery,
whose love has kept our world in being since the dawn of time,
we praise you for the richness of the feast of life
you make for us each day.
Hear now our prayers of deep gratitude this day
For all the goodness you curate in our lives. Amen.