Good Evening Dear Ones!
Happy Sabbath Rest and Self Care Retreat weekend ! Yes dear ones it is time to link arms and hearts and begin to be in prayer with each other. It is also time to lay down our burdens and spend time at the feet of our Lord with open hearts and listening ears. It's time to get out our Worry/Sabbath Box, jar, or journal and do just that.
Let us continue and spend time in our mindfulness exercises and just be. Let us do the Peace be Stills tonight.
Peace be still.
Peace be.
Peace.
Inhale
Exhale
Pause
Repeat.
God we lift up our tired spirits and come to you this night with our hearts open and ears ready to hear what you are saying to us. Tonight we make vigil and pray in the light and love of God. We light our candles and reflect upon this day.
God of all mercy help us to learn what it means to be merciful and Teach us how we show mercy.
God of all justice help us to learn what it means to be just. Teach and show us how to be just.
God of all humbleness help us to learn what it means to be humble.Teach and show us ho to be humble and enter into humility.
God of all love help us learn to love more fully. Teach and show us how to be more loving.
God of all peace help us learn to be peace makers. Teach and show us how to be peace makers.
God of all joy help us to be joyful and show joy to others.
Help us every day to know that we are praying in the light and love of God.
God of all kindness help us to learn to be kind. Teach and show us how and what it means to be kind.
God of all hopefulness help us to learn how to be hopeful when we feel hopeless.
God of all gentleness help us to learn to be gentle even when we feel like lashing out. Bring us back to that gentle core where we feel your gentleness.
God of all holiness help us to learn how to be holy. Teach us and show us what it means to be holy beings.
God of all patience help us to learn how to be patient. Teach and show us how to be patient.
God help us we pray to enter into a time of prayer for all who have been victims of unnecessary violence, bigotry, hatred, and fear.
God we pray for___________________
God in the words of the African Proverb - "IF YOU SPEAK MY NAME, I WILL LIVE FOREVER."
We speak the names of Terence Crutcher and Keith Lamont Scott who have been the latest victims of police violence.
God we pray for the least of these who will not have adequate food, clothing, and shelter this weekend. Help us to care for them as you care for us out of your great abundance.
Help us every day to know that we are praying in the light and love of God
God help us to learn how to be practitioners of civil disobedience, peaceful non-violent protest, and social justice. Teach and show us how to do these things with courage, grace, and love.
God we lift up these our prayers to you in your light and love. Amen.
A Prayer attributed to St. Francis
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is
hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where
there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where
there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where
there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to
be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is
in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we
are born to eternal life. Amen.
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is
hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where
there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where
there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where
there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to
be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is
in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we
are born to eternal life. Amen.
Today we pray and remember Thecla
Thecla was a saint of the early Christian Church, and a reported follower of Paul the Apostle. The earliest record of her life comes from the ancient apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla.
According to the Acts of Paul and Thecla, Thecla was a young noble virgin who listened to Paul's "discourse on virginity" and became Paul's follower and a Disciple of Paul's teachings and Ministry. Thecla's mother and her fiancé Thamyris became concerned Thecla would follow Paul's demand "one must fear only one God and live in chastity", and punished both Paul and Thecla.
Thecla was miraculously saved from burning at the stake by the onset of a storm and traveled with Paul to Antioch of Pisidia. There a nobleman named Alexander desired Thecla and attempted to take her by force. Thecla fought him off, assaulting him in the process, and was put on trial for assaulting a nobleman. She was sentenced to be eaten by wild beasts, but was again saved by a series of miracles when the female beasts protected her against her male aggressors.
Thecla gained a massive "cult-like" following, and became perhaps the most prominent figure for female empowerment at the time. She listened to Paul's teachings to fear nobody but God, and live in chastity. She demonstrates these teachings on several occasions starting from the first time she heard Paul speak by leaving Thamyris, fighting off Alexander, and surviving several life threatening situations. She traveled to preach the word of God and became an icon encouraging women to also live a life of chastity and follow the word of the Lord.
from Wikipedia
Collect of the Day
God of liberating power, you raised up your apostle Thecla, who allowed no obstacle or peril to inhibit her from bearing witness to new life in Jesus Christ: Empower courageous evangelists among us, that men and women everywhere may experience the freedom you offer; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Exodus 1:15-21
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?” The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.
Psalm 91:9-15
Qui habitat
9 Because you have made the Lord your refuge, *
and the Most High your habitation,
10 There shall no evil happen to you, *
neither shall any plague come near your dwelling.
11 For he shall give his angels charge over you, *
to keep you in all your ways.
12 They shall bear you in their hands, *
lest you dash your foot against a stone.
13 You shall tread upon the lion and adder; *
you shall trample the young lion and the serpent under your feet.
14 Because he is bound to me in love,
therefore will I deliver him; *
I will protect him, because he knows my Name.
15 He shall call upon me, and I will answer him; *
I am with him in trouble;
I will rescue him and bring him to honor.
2 Timothy 3:10-12
You have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and suffering the things that happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. Indeed, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
John 4:23-30, 39-42
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him.
Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”
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Good Night Dear Family ! I love you and give thanks to God for you this night and always.
Love and blessings!
Sara
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