| New Book now Available Here is an anthology of over 1100 brief prayers and thought-starters, for each day of the year, with almost 400 original prayers by Bruce Prewer. Included is both a subject index and an index of authors-- an ecumenical collection of about 300 different sources. |
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| Title: Brief Prayers for Busy People. Author: Bruce D Prewer ISBN 978-1-62880-090-6 Available from Australian Church Resources, web site www.acresources.com.au email service@acresources.com.au or by order from your local book shop or online on amazon. |
NOVEMBER 1ST
* The following readings may also be used on the first Sunday in November.
This liturgy incorporates All Souls.
Matthew 5: 1-12
1 John 3: 1-3
Revelation 7: 9-17
Psalm 34: 1-10, 22.
CALL TO WORSHIP
The joy of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
And
also with you.
Today we give thanks to God for those special Christians whom we tend to see as the lesser saints,
and also for all souls who have departed this life in faith and love – many of whom remain especially dear to your hearts.
Thanks be to God, for those whom we have loved dearly but are out
of our reach for a short while.
After this I saw a vast crowd, which no one could count; people from every nation, of all tribes, cultures and languages.
They were in their white baptismal robes, and had palms in their hands, and they shouted:
“The final victory
belongs to God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
They shall never again feel hunger or thirst, the sun shall not beat on them or any scorching heat, because the Lamb of God will be their Shepherd and will guide them to springs of the water of life; and God will wipe away all tears from their eyes.
“Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom,
thanksgiving and honour, power and might, be to our God for ever and ever.
Amen!
PRAYER OF THANKS
Creator and Redeemer of all souls,
we have joy at this time in all who have faithfully lived, and in all who have
peacefully died.
We thank you for all happy
memories and all living hopes; for the sacred ties that bind us to the unseen
world; for the dear and holy dead who surround us like a cloud of witnesses and
make the hidden heaven a home to our hearts.
By your saving love, may we be
follows of those who already inherit your promise.
Through Christ
Jesus our Lord.
Amen!
PRAYER OF REPENTANCE
If we have placed our only hope in the things we can see and touch, and have denied ourselves, or those close to us, that greater`hope in the glory of things unseen.
Lord have mercy.
Lord have mercy.
If we have chosen to nurse our grief for the loss of dear ones, with the bitterness of those who weep without hope or faith in your saving love, Christ have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
If we put the saints on pious pedestals, and restrict ourselves to a diminished respect for our own capacity to grow in the knowledge and love of God, Lord have mercy.
Lord have mercy.
God of love, we thank your for your patience. You have given us some many guides and helpers to inspire us, and have given us the word that one day we shall be as Christ Jesus is; yet we have been slow to hear, reluctant to learn and sluggish in our efforts. We repent this our lack of faith and love, and ask that the love of Jesus Christ which so healed and uplifted the saints, may mercifully deal with our sins and empower our renewed good intentions.
Through Christ Jesus our Saviour/
Amen!
FORGIVENESS
My friends, the victory that overcomes the pessimism and
recriminations of the world, is faith. For who is victorious except those who
put their trust in Jesus, the only true Son of God?
It is in
his name that I declare to all repentant people: You sins are forgiven you. Go
in peace.
Thanks be to God!
PRAYER FOR CHILDREN
Dear God,
thank you
for all those lovely people
who were
once little kids like us
and who
grew up to your saints.
Please can
we have a big dose of their courage,
that we
will not be put off by set backs
or led
astray by silly, selfish people.
Help us to
believe and to trust
that your
Light can live is us
and shine
through us
as we
do good
things for no reward
and
without showing off.
If we could
be like that,
we would
be very happy.
Right?
Amen.
PSALM 34: 1-10, 22.
My mind is
fully made up,
I will worship, my mouth full of praises.
I have
nothing to boast about except God,
troubled
folk shall hear this and cheer up.
Come then,
extol this loving God with me,
together
we will lift high God’s name!
My prayers
have been answered
God has
delivered me from my fears.
Why don’t
you look to God and smile?
You will
never have to blush with shame.
I am just a
very ordinary person,
yet
God helped me out of my troubles.
God’s
angels will encamp around you,
trust and
you too will be delivered.
O taste for
yourself how good God is!
Happy are
all who take refuge in God.
Be in awe,
all you saints of God,
for then
you will want for nothing.
Even young
lions may go hungry,
but you
will have all that you need.
The lives
of God’s servants are redeemed,
none of
them will ever be condemned.
Copyright B D Prewer 2006
LIMERICKS FOR “ALL SOULS”
There was a poor man of
Australia
who received no degree or
regalia,
yet when it came to true
love
he brought heaven above
to earth without
paraphernalia.
*To a certain plumber
There
was a girl on the coast
who was never heard to boast,
except she did say
by her deeds every day
that her Lord was just the “most.”
*To a certain “postie”
They
found the bloke named Pete
absolutely out on his feet,
he had swam in seas wild
to rescue one child
and then he did a repeat.
*To a certain jogger.
© B D Prewer 2006
COLLECT
Your love, O God, is timeless. May we so trust you in this temporal
world, allowing you to shape our lives, that at the end of our days we may join
those saints that have gone on ahead of us within the eternal world, where all
is light, love, peace and joy. Through the saving love of Christ Jesus, who
lives and loves with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for
ever and ever.
Amen!
SERMON:
A WORD TO THE ADVENTUROUS
Matthew 5: 1-12
Don’t wax sentimental about the
saints. Get real.
Honour them, be influenced by them, and treasure their memory.
But do not discount the cost
of being a saint
The way of Jesus is not for wimps.
THE VALUES OF JESUS
The values which Jesus affirms in
the Sermon of the Mount are "out of this world." Maybe like
preview of eternal life? That limitless
life we are called to start living here and now?
Living it will, undoubtedly, get his
followers into trouble. The old world is set in its ways.
It might by
wearing the cloak of respectability, pay lip service to Jesus as an honourable man, but if people begin to emulate him,
something other than sweet roses hits the fan!
After all,
those beatitudes -- as pretty and harmless as they may sound when read with an
ecclesiastical lilt --would turn things upside if they were lived. It takes a
brave and adventurous spirit to set out to walk the walk as well as talk the
talk.
Think about
it!
Blessed are the poor, blessed are the
sorrowful, blessed are the meek, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure
in heart, blessed are the peacemakers?
Try that on
in our greedy, hedonistic, self-assertive, vengeful, conniving and violent
world, and see how far you get without some troubles coming your way!
ALL SAINTS
GREAT AND SMALL
The saints
are people who are divinely adventurous. They attempt to live Jesus style, as
far as possible in this crazy old world. Rarely are they popular in their day.
As I use
the word saints, I am not only thinking of those great saints who have been
officially canonized. I also have in mind the vast number of “small saints.” Those loving adventurers who rarely made a big enough splash to be
remembered beyond their generation. Only God knows how many good souls
just disappeared, their deeds unrecorded, into the dust of history. Some were
dealt with violently, others sent (or had to escape) into exile, many died in
poverty and were buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave.
Usually
such folk were loved by a few but either ignored or mocked by many. That is commonly the lot of saints.
Like St
Claire and St Francis, they did what they did in spite of hostility from those
who had much invested in the status quo. Likewise St Mary McKillop
of Australia was not popular among the power brokers. Her work with the
socially disadvantaged was not welcomed by those in power; and that included
those with ecclesiastical clout.
Little has
changed today. There are countless ordinary, “small saints” around us who said
have said yes to the spirit and word of the beatitudes. Loving, adventurous
souls who in one way or another have suffered hurt, rejection, or sophisticated
disdain, because of their loyalty in following the Lord Jesus. Rarely do such
folk into the news.
Many “small
saints” do not even complain about their suffering to friends. Most certainly
do not brood over their hurts; bitterness is not for them. They just get on
with doing the Jesus thing to the best of their ability.
CONTRAST:
POPULAR RELIGION
In
contrast, we have some exponents of a deviant form of Christianity which
expects to be popular.
Success is
almost worshipped. They seek to mix with the famous and the powerful. Their
preachers get a kick out of being able to comment in a sermon: “As my friend
the Prime Minister commented the other day……….” Should a flamboyant pop star,
or a sporting idol, deign to be a member, they purr as loudly a felines in
their seventh heaven.
They expect
to be healthy and financially prosperous. It is as ìf
with a flick of the wrist, they have produced a new beatitude: “Blessed are you
when all men speak well of you.”
You will
not find many saints in their ranks. Neither great saints nor
small saints.
It may be
natural for the rest of us, the faithful plodders, to sometimes feel a trifle
envious of those who “make it, big time.” After all, while the small saints may
be copping it in the neck for daring to espouse the rights of the poor, the
meek, the hungry, the merciful, the pure and the peacemakers, the popularity
guys are maybe dining with a patron at “Mario’s”
or
sitting as guests in the corporate boxes at the Australian Open (tennis).
As I say,
it might be natural to experience a bit of envy, but never covetousness. No
way! On this All Saints Day, let us take stock. Let us affirm our commitment to
that poor preacher, the “Son of man who had nowhere to lay his head.”” And be
happy about it!
BE HAPPY
Let me
stress that: For God’s sake be happy about the hard choices you may make. To
follow Christ is combine some frustration with much happy adventure. To follow
Christ mixes discipline with new liberty, and some pain with much happiness.
Dour
religion is just as much a perversion as what I have categorised
as success religion.
Some times
I give this final greeting at the end of a letter: ‘The good humor of Christ be always with you.” I mean it with all my heart. Joy is one of the key words in the New
Testament. Written by Christians who were constantly harrased,
imprisoned, flogged or worse, they wrote buoyantly about the joy that was
theirs.
The saints,
great and small, are happy souls. The way of Christ is certainly not for wimps
but neither is it for those with sour faces and leaden steps.
It was well
written about Jesus, “who, in the place
of joy that was open to him, endured the cross, making light of its dislove, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the
throne of God.” Hebrew 12:2.
Today
remember all saints; including those small saints who lives touched on yours
with a special blessing. Remember, give thanks, and get real. Take your marks
once again for the race on which you are lovingly entered.
PRAYER OF REMEMBRANCE
Living God,
in whom there is no shadow or change, we thank you for the gift of life
eternal, and for all those who having served you well, now rest from their labours.
We thank
you for all the saints remembered and forgotten, for those dear souls most
precious to us. Today we give thanks for
those who during the last twelve months have died and entered into glory.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...
We bless
you for their life and love, and rejoice for them “all is well, and all manner
of things will be well.”
God of Jesus and our God,
mindful of all those choice souls who have gone on ahead of us,
teach us, and each twenty-first century disciple of every race and place,
to follow their example to the best of our ability:
to feed the poor in body or spirit,
to support and comfort the mourners and the repentant,
to encourage the meek and stand with them in crises,
to affirm those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
to cherish and learn from the merciful,
to be humbled by, and stand with, the peacemakers.
Let us clearly recognise what it means
to be called the children of God,
and to know we are to be your saints
neither by our own inclination nor
in our own strength
but simply by the call
and the healing holiness
of Christ Jesus our Saviour.
Amen!
WORD OF MISSION AND BLESSING
Go on your
way rejoicing;
Surrounded
as you are by such a great cloud of witnesses,
take courage as you face each new challenge,
and comfort when you pick yourself from a fall,
In whatever
good you choose to do,
precede
it with hope,
accompany
it with prayer,
and
follow it with thanksgiving.
The
blessing of God Most Wonderful,
whom the
saints have trusted as
Father, Son
and Holy Spirit,
will be
with you
now and
ever more.
Amen!
THREE BOOKS BY BRUCE PREWER
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