Hello, my friends!
It is good to be back with you for another season of reflecting and growing together. You might remember this past summer we reflected on the revolutionary act of praying the daily office. We discussed how and why the daily office came to exist within in the Anglican tradition. And that it served as an invitation to all people to exercise their agency to engage their faith in deeply personal and communal ways. This spiritual rhythm of the daily office, or any regular worship or devotional prayer time, most certainly is part of the pathway towards the radical transformation that God calls us towards. But it is not just the rhythm or regularity that matters. The words we use matter too.
Many of us may have heard the phrases, “what we pray is what we believe” or “praying shapes believing.” At its simplest, these phrases speak to the reality that what the words we pray inform what we believe. And what we believe, in turn, shapes our lives of discipleship and faith. That is why the language we use during worship and prayer – or in our personal mantras and daily affirmations – are so important and so powerful. Because when we hear and mediate on those words over and over in the context of our lives of faith, we begin to truly believe them – to internalize them in a way that our lives really do begin to take a different shape, to radically transform. Why? Because we begin to make different decisions rooted in this new and evolving understanding of who we believe and understand ourselves, others, and God to be.
Here is a Curate Corner spoiler alert: for the next four weeks I will be reflecting on the theme of radical transformation through sharing prayers for us to mediate on together. We have heard so many times that our community has made a commitment to radical transformation. And I believe that prayer and discernment is the foundation from which we begin this life-long, faith-filled process. My hope is that this will be an opportunity to experience different language that I believe captures our communal commitments and also challenges us bring our commitments to our lives of prayer.
I have chosen to begin with A Prayer for Justice from A Booklet of Uncommon Prayer: Collects for the #BlackLivesMatter Movement and Beyond because not only is it inspired by a prayer many of us know well, the Prayer of Saint Francis (Lord, make me an instrument of your peace), but it also helps us to meditate on how peace and justice are not mutually exclusive. This prayer brings to my mind the ageless protest chant, “no justice, no peace.” And I hear in this prayer the deeper challenge of recognizing that being an instrument of justice is also being instrument of peace.
We know that radical transformation is possible. May we challenge ourselves to pray daily together on our road towards transformation. I invite you to pray with each prayer during the week and take some space to reflect on how the language might speak to our radical transformation as disciples of Christ and as a community of faith. I cannot wait to hear from you about your experience and reflections!
Be well,
Deacon Megan
A Prayer for Justice
God, make us instruments of your justice.
Where there is false and untenable peace, let us sow dissent;
where there is injustice, fury;
where there is oppression, hope;
where there is false fluorescence, profound darkness;
where there is social depression, life;
where there is crime and poverty, a sustainable economic infrastructure.
Grant that we may not so much seek to be uplifted as to uplift;
to be seen as to see others.
For it is in protesting the sin of the system
that we acknowledge our own sin;
it is in demanding justice of the powerful
that we live out God’s demands for us;
and it is in rejecting the American Dream
That we are born into God’s dream.
Amen.
What word(s) or phrase(s) in this prayer stick(s) out most to you? How does it feel to pray these words?
When you reflect on our community, in what ways are we embodied instruments of justice and where might we continue to experience radical transformation?