The Joy of Praying Together

PRAYERS TOGETHER

There is something lovely about praying aloud with other people.  In some church services where I have been people pray in unison things like the Lord’s Prayer or as I was growing up most church services had a Psalm that was prayed responsively – one verse to the leader and one to the congregation.  In some churches overseas people are invited to pray and they all pray personal prayers aloud together. In recent years when I attended a Chinese/English service, the prayers were given to us and we prayed in our mother tongue together.  Sometimes I have my iPad read aloud certain meditations that I read each day but when it comes to the prayer at the end, I join in with my voice. 

Today, I’ll put all the words to the prayers on the screen as we pray together.  I invite you to pray aloud and together let’s speak to God.

We begin with one of my favourite liturgical prayers – I often find myself throughout the week praying these words.  They seem to me to be so appropriate for how we live each day as well as how we worship when we come together in God’s house.

Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of Your Holy Spirit that we may perfectly love You and worthily magnify Your holy name through Christ our Lord. (Anglican Collect for Purity - Thomas Cranmer )

We will pray and ask God to help us seek and find him because we are promised in the Bible that if we will seek God with all our hearts we will find Him.

Gracious and holy Father, please give me intellect to understand you, reason to discern you, diligence to seek you, wisdom to find you, a spirit to know you, a heart to meditate upon you, ears to  hear you, eyes to see you, a tongue to proclaim you, a way of life pleasing to you, patience to wait for you, and perseverance to look for you. Grant me a perfect end, your holy presence, a blessed resurrection, and life everlasting. Amen.

O God, the light of the minds that know you, the life of the souls that love you, and the strength of the wills that serve you: Help us so to know you that we may truly love you, and so to love you that we may fully serve you, whom to serve is perfect freedom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Then we give thanks to God who has been with us and will continue to go forward with us during these difficult times of suffering because of the pandemic and the horror of hatred and discrimination.

Almighty God, our strong tower of defense in time of trouble: We offer you praise and heartfelt thanks for our deliverance from the dangers which lately surrounded us and for your gracious gift of peace. We confess that your goodness alone has preserved us; and we ask you still to continue your mercies toward us, that we may always know and acknowledge you as our Savior and mighty Deliverer; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

O God, who created all peoples in your image: We thank you for the diversity of races and cultures in this world. Show us your presence in those who differ from us, and enrich our lives with their fellowship, until our knowledge of your love is made perfect in our love for all your children; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

In these difficult times we ask God in these next two prayers to deliver us from fear and support us in these challenging times: 

Increase, O God, the spirit of neighborliness among us, that in peril we may uphold one another, in suffering tend to one another, and in homelessness, loneliness, or exile befriend one another. Grant us brave and enduring hearts that we may strengthen one another, until the disciplines and testing of these days are ended, and you again give peace in our time; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Dear Lord and Savior Jesus Christ: I hold up all my weakness to your strength, my failure to your faithfulness, my sinfulness to your perfection, my loneliness to your compassion, my little pains to your great agony on the Cross. I pray that you will cleanse me, strengthen me, guide me, so that in all ways my life may be lived as you would have it lived, without cowardice and for you alone. Show me how to live in true humility, true contrition, and true love. Amen.