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Morning Prayer - Intercessions
Yesterday, while praying morning prayer, I began to really think about and pray the intercessions contained within that hour of the divine office. The intercessions come after the hymn, psalmody, reading, and canticle, and they only have the Our Father and closing prayer after them. Usually this means that I am rushing through them, because I'm in a hurry, or have lost my concentration at this point, or something. Basically, for one reason or another, I never have really concentrated on them. Well, yesterday I did, and I was happily surprised (go figure) that they are quite beautiful when you really pray them.
Intercessions - Morning Prayer - Wednesday, fourth week of Lent (3/13/13):
Let us give thanks to God, our Father: through the power of the Spirit he purifies our hearts and strengthens us in love. Let us humbly ask him:
Lord, give us your Holy Spirit.
I always am taking for granted everything that God has given to me. He gives us His mercy and love so that we can be made clean, purified, for His greater glory, for our salvation, and that we may more strongly proclaim His love to those around us.
Help us to receive good things from your bounty with a deep sense of gratitude,
– and to accept with patience the evil that comes to us.
Lord, give us your Holy Spirit.
Again, I just never actually take the time to tell God the obvious: Thank You for Your many gifts; Help me to rely on You in the tough times, and carry my crosses with Your love, patience, and fortitude.
Teach us to be loving not only in great and exceptional moments,
– but above all in the ordinary events of daily life.
Lord, give us your Holy Spirit.
Yep, love is everything because God is love. He needs to be in every part of our lives - every where, every time, every opportunity...
May we abstain from what we do not really need,
– and help our brothers and sisters in distress.
Lord, give us your Holy Spirit.
Sacrifices in Lent can't stop at us just not eating that donut, or watching that show - they need to directly (and indirectly) show themselves in love. Lent is for getting closer to God - becoming more like Him. Since God is love (see previous thought), Lent needs to make us more loving. If skipping that donut makes us less loving, we need to find something else to skip.
May we bear the wounds of your Son,
– for through his body he gave us life.
Lord, give us your Holy Spirit.
See above about carrying crosses... Through Christ's death, Heaven was opened for us, and only through our own death (both through death to self and this world, and death literally) can we take Christ up on the most magnificent gift that has ever been given.
As you can probably see, I have been seriously undervaluing these intercessions. I find myself all the time seeing little things (parts of the Mass, or mysteries of the rosary, or stations of the cross, etc.) that I have never seen or realized before. There is so much depth, beauty, and profundity to Catholic faith, liturgy, devotions, prayers, etc.; we just have to look for it.
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| Pope Francis with St. Peter in foreground - It's a cool picture so I used it. |
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