Daily Office Readings for Friday of the Second Week of Lent: Year 2
Morning, Psalm 95 and 69; Evening, Psalm 73;
Genesis 43:1 to 15; 1st Corinthians 7:1 to 9; Mark 4:35 to 41:
“Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time, to devote yourselves to prayer, and then come together again” (1st Corinthians 7:5)
I do not accept all of Saint Paul’s advice or his beliefs about the husband wife relationships given that he himself was never married. But buried deep in his counsel is the recommendation that each of us should pray. And from the way he says it I feel it means for each of us to find our own time alone to do so. And then he writes “And then come together again.” This suggests that we are alone during our praying, but later we join with one another again. This means corporate and paired.
I do premarital counseling for couples engaged to be married. Of the several categories of questions I ask, I ask about their faith (or faiths). As they come to me (a priest) for doing the wedding it should be understood that the marriage is a Christian matter. My Book of Common Prayer says that at least one of them must be baptized. Personally I prefer both of them to be Christian (even better if both are Episcopalian, but not necessary). I don’t expect the couple to provide me with what they resolved about any of the subjects that I want them to discuss, I just want to know that they had the conversations, especially about praying together.
The importance of prayers said by people in love cannot be over emphasized. As I have been, and continue to be, very concerned about the Ukrainian people since the Russian invasion began, I can’t help but ponder about how the Ukrainian husband and wife might have prayed together before she was sent out of the country, while he stayed back to fight. I want our prayers to join their prayers as all of our prayers ascend to heaven as “Radiant Energy,” (a term I heard at my Shalem Circle Spiritual directors meeting last Monday). I called these Radiant Energy prayers “Universal Prayers.” I am again reminded that as such prayers go up, even in tears, that God’s ears, hears tears. Let us spend some time during our Sabbath time in prayer for Ukraine; Please.
“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done” (Genesis 2:1 and 2). So, for this evening and tomorrow day my friends, Shabbat Shalom.
What is Shabbat? Intro to the Jewish Sabbath – YouTube
As we listen to what the Spirit is saying to us, let us live to love, to serve, and to teach, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John
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