Category: Daily Prayer

THE LIST

2/2/2024

"You're on The List today,"  I tell people. I don't need to say 'today', at  least not to myself, because The List is only for the current day.
     Every morning I write 12 names on a little yellow post-it and do my best to pray it 7 times during the day. The number 12 represents corporate completeness, reminding me that these individuals are part of the human family. The number 7 represents individual completeness,  something I strive toward for myself and others. Jesus had twelve apostles. The psalmist tells us,  seven times a day do I praise you…(119:164) .
     The List stays in the Angel Room, begging to be noticed whenever I come into the room.

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Prayer groups

5/16/2023

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I am connected to various prayer chains and prayer group. Two are rather formal, the others come and go as a need arises. The purpose of all the groups to ask for prayers and to offer and receive prayer requests. That's it! We don't discuss prayer; we just pray, which feels like enough and which is enough. How do I know that? My heart tells me.
So, pray away in whatever way you do. Your heart will lead you.

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Praying as a child of God

12/14/2021

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This is just for you, my prayer diary friends. (As you know, I do my best to keep anything too prayerful, too religious, too Godlike out of my cottage by the sea blog.)
As I started out this morning to wander the streets of Florence and settle on where to stop for my first cappuccino of the day, I felt a restlessness.(I’m sure you know that feeling). So I decided to stop in at La Badia where I knew I could sit silently in prayer. When there isn’t a service going on in this ancient church, all that is happening is prayer! I sat for a good half hour, gazing at an icon of Jesus. My prayer felt deep as I sat with God and then prayed for people and situations. I left renewed, back in God’s world.
These paradigm shifts have been happening to me more and more these day, not just in Florence, but at home. I shift from trying to negotiation this world as only a human being, to being fully present in this world as a child of God. I think of Jesus, fully human, fully divine. I know I must spend time praying and meditation at the start of each day.

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July 21st, 2021

7/21/2021

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Father of our souls and of all souls on earth, into the light of Thy compassion we bring the President of our country and the leaders of all other lands. As they make decisions that may prove fateful for the human race, may their eyes be opened to the need of those who cry across the world for bread and life. Allan A. Hunter (1893-1982).

This prayer from a devotional that my mother gave me, one she read every day. It is comforting each morning to continue some of the same habits she had throughout her life. I recall when we traveled together she would quietly unpack her Bible and other readings, this one included, and always find time to spend time God each morning.

These particular words by Allan Hunter remind me that some things don’t change. Presidents, our country, and leaders of other lands will always need prayers, prayers for those who cry out for bread and life. It feels like a big prayer, but then, if everyone in the world did their bit to pray it, the prayer would be answered. I believe that. I also believe that my mom’s prayers are still being sent and answered. It doesn’t make any sense to me that her prayers have stopped or that the ones she prayed during her 101 years have no more voice in the world.

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John Baille's A Diary of Private Prayer

3/24/2020

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Here are some blessings from John Baille’s A Diary of Private Prayer (1949), which I read every morning and evening, from the very book my mom read every morning and evening. I can still picture her sitting in bed quietly praying the words out loud. The style is dated, the message is eternal.

Now unto Thee, O heavenly Father, be all praise and glory that day by day Thou doest richly fill my life with various blessings:

A home to share, kindred to love, and friends to cherish:
A place to fill and a work to do:
A green world to live in, blue skies above me, and pure air to breathe:
Healthy exercise and simple pleasure:
Good books to read and many arts and crafts to delight in:
So much that is worth knowing and the skill and science to know it:
Those high thoughts that sometimes fill my mind and come I know not
     whence:
Many happy days, and that inward calm that Thou givest me in days of
     gloom:
Thy peace, passing understanding, that comes from Thine indwelling in my
     soul:
The faith that looks through death and the hope of a larger life beyond the
     grave.

Make home sweeter and friends dearer:
Turning sorrow into gladness and pain into the soul’s victory:
Robbing death of its sting:
Robbing sin of its power:
Making peace more peaceful and joy more joyful and faith and hope more
     secure. Amen

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Morning prayer

5/3/2019

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I love my morning routine, that first hour of the day. In Florence it includes walking about the city with God, slipping into a bar for a cappuccino, and sitting a café writing. The routine at home involves sipping black American coffee as I pray—expressing gratitudes, praying my prayer book and writing out my Top Ten Prayer List for the day.
I don’t know which scenario I like the best, but I am aware that the home version is the more God centered of the two. To be honest, when I’m wandering about Florence, much of my thought is on where to stop for that first cappuccino.
At home in the morning, sitting here in the Angel Room, my prayer is at its ‘best’, but it drifts away as the day goes on. I want to change that. Reviewing the day with God at the end of the day is another ‘best’ idea, but hard to generated. No coffee or being sleepy is not a good excuse.

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The Daily Office and monastic fantasy

11/18/2018

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The Daily Office is not a Protestant way of worshipping. The idea of stopping to pray seven times a day, or even three, is no part of our ritual. But I’ve always be intrigued by this monastic way of being faithful. In fact, one of my fantasies is to be a monk (not a nun) in one of the English monastery that flourished before the beginning of their dissolution by Henry VIII in 1536. I’ve visited many and am still deciding which to choose: Fountains, Rivault in England, or perhaps Glastonbury or Melrose in Scotland.
Oh well, all a fantasy, but I can create my own daily office schedule. Three times a day, morning, noon, and evening is manageable. When I attending to such a schedule, the Bible, along with The Divine Hours: A Manual for Prayer, by Phyllis Tickle, and various other readings, become my guide.

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THE LIST

Prayer groups

Praying as a child of God

July 21st, 2021

John Baille's A Diary of Private Prayer

Morning prayer

The Daily Office and monastic fantasy

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