Spiritual Practice
A Spring Novena
Good morning, beloved. This past weekend was our Pentecost celebration in churches around the world, and it got me thinking of making a novena, a nine day prayer exercise for my daily life; it’s a little Spring Cleaning for my soul. I’m starting mine tomorrow, on Wednesday, May 18th. My little novena is not officially sanctioned by any church body, Catholic, Anglican or Episcopal… it’s just my own effort to focus my prayers for the next nine days, and I invite you to go along with me as a spiritual friend.
I’m structuring my novena with an intention, prayers and a practice. You’re invited to join me in that intention, the use of these prayers and my framework of practice, or to change them and use them as seems best for you.
Intention
My intention for this novena is to focus on the spiritual flow of my day, to slow down my mind and still my heart to a place where I can sit with God in the middle of my hectic flow of work and play. In short, my intention is a greater awareness of God’s Spirit with me at various points in the day.
Prayers
I’ll be using three prayers as a beginning place for each prayer time during the nine days, my own daily prayer, the Lord’s Prayer and a prayer from the Book of Common Prayer for the human family In Times of Conflict. I’m going to have these all on my phone for easy access, and I usually have my Book of Common Prayer (also found online and in most used bookstores) in my backpack. Plan for prayers!
My Daily Prayer: “Let me love, let me learn, let me serve.”
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
28. In Times of Conflict
O God, you have bound us together in a common life.
Help us, in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth,
to confront one another without hatred or bitterness,
and to work together with mutual forbearance and respect;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. BCP pg. 824
Practice
My practice will be to stop before each meal or a break time when I get something to eat (I sometimes take a break at work and grab a samosa and a diet Coke), and feed my soul before feeding my belly. Again, my beginning prayers are all in the Book of Common Prayer which I normally carry, but will also be in my phone and iPad. I also plan to begin each of the next nine days upon waking with our baptism vows of the Episcopal. If you’re familiar with them, they end with the following lines (my favorites):
Celebrant: Will you proclaim by word and example
the Good News of God in Christ?
People: I will, with God’s help.
Celebrant: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons,
loving your neighbor as yourself?
People: I will, with God’s help.
Celebrant: Will you strive for justice and peace among
all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
People: I will, with God’s help.
BCP pg. 305
If you join me on this little journey, I’d love to hear about your prayers and days. If you have a different intention or vary the prayers and practice, I’d love to hear about that, too.
AMDG, Todd
Good Ritual
I think I’ll do something here I haven’t done much of… I’m gonna share my message notes! Today at Church in Bethesda we are finishing a series on Seven Spiritual Practices That Transform. I’m not immune to the words that come of my mouth, so I’m thinking about my own rituals, habit and life, in the light of the scriptures we will share. Here ya go…
Ritual ~ Cultivating Action
We come this week to the close of our discussion of Seven Spiritual Practices That Transform. Our “big idea” has been that we can adopt and adapt practices into our lives that will transform who we are and transform our world. We aren’t looking for just “change,” but for a deeper movement, a transforming.
We conclude today taking about “ritual,” what is sometimes the foundation of religious life and the bane of religious growth. Ritual is inevitable and shared, and so it should be handled with care. Good ritual, ritual that supports a person’s growth with God and is rooted in deep meaning and matters of importance, is ritual that cultivates action. Ritual that becomes detached from the matters of greatest importance will lose its meaning and ultimately bind and suffocate.
Main Ideas For The Day…
First, Jesus spoke and intended us to act. Some of us grew singing the song from Matthew 7 about “The wise man built his house upon the rock, and the rains came a-tumbling down…” When teaching the Sermon on the Mount as a youth pastor I often taught it backwards beginning here in chapter 7, beginning with the intention of Jesus that we act on his words. Jesus desired us to meaningfully engage what he taught and act it out in the world.
Secondly, Jesus didn’t like action separated from meaning. In Matthew 23 Jesus took some religious leaders to task for having flawless ritual and tradition, except that it actually violated the heart and will of God by being dead to the matters of greatest importance. Jesus wasn’t simply anti-ritual or anti-establishment. He was a reformer, or a restorer in many ways. *Matthew 23:23… keep the ritual, but make sure it’s serving the meaning!
Thirdly, review your ritual, your habits and ceremonies for meaning and growth. Think of the things you do, your actions, habits and routines, and prayerfully seek to align them with the matters of greatest importance. And we do this as a community, a church family!
The Value of Ritual
- Ritual teaches
- Ritual forms
- Ritual sustains
The Danger of Ritual
- Ritual can replace meaning
- Ritual can be mistaken for meaning (Colossians 2:16-23)
Have a blessed week, people! I’ll be posting later on in the week from the Wild Goose Festival! Hope to see some of you, there!
AMDG, Todd
toddthomas.net 