Opening Sentence
I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son." Luke 15:18, 19
Confession
Let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor.
Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen.
Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us all our sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen us in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep us in eternal life. Amen.
Invitatory Lent
Lord, open our lips.
And our mouth shall proclaim
your praise.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,
As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: Come let us adore him.
Venite Psalm 95:1-7
Come let us sing to the Lord; *
let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving
*
and raise a loud shout to him with psalms.
For the Lord is a great God, *
and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the caverns of the earth, *
and the heights of the hills are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it, *
and his hands have molded the dry land.
Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, *
and kneel before the Lord our Maker.
For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.
*
Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!
Antiphon
The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: Come let us adore him.
Psalm 119:145-176
Qoph Clamavi in toto corde meo
Gloria Patri
Glory
to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit
as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
Exodus 7:8-24
8 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron,
9 "When Pharaoh says to you, 'Perform a wonder,' then you shall say to Aaron, 'Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh, and it will become a snake.' "
10 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did as the LORD had commanded; Aaron threw down his staff before Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake.
11 Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers; and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did the same by their secret arts.
12 Each one threw down his staff, and they became snakes; but Aaron's staff swallowed up theirs.
13 Still Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the LORD had said.
14 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pharaoh's heart is hardened; he refuses to let the people go.
15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is going out to the water; stand by at the river bank to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that was turned into a snake.
16 Say to him, 'The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you to say, "Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness." But until now you have not listened.'
17 Thus says the LORD, "By this you shall know that I am the LORD." See, with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall be turned to blood.
18 The fish in the river shall die, the river itself shall stink, and the Egyptians shall be unable to drink water from the Nile.' "
19 The LORD said to Moses, "Say to Aaron, 'Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egyptover its rivers, its canals, and its ponds, and all its pools of waterso that they may become blood; and there shall be blood throughout the whole land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.' "
20 Moses and Aaron did just as the LORD commanded. In the sight of Pharaoh and of his officials he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the river, and all the water in the river was turned into blood,
21 and the fish in the river died. The river stank so that the Egyptians could not drink its water, and there was blood throughout the whole land of Egypt.
22 But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts; so Pharaoh's heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them; as the LORD had said.
23 Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he did not take even this to heart.
24And all the Egyptians had to dig along the Nile for water to drink, for they could not drink the water of the river.
Canticle 14 A Song of Penitence
Kyrie Pantokrator Prayer of Manasseh 1-2, 4, 6-7,
11-15
O Lord and Ruler of the hosts of heaven, *
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
and of all their righteous offspring:
You made the heavens and the earth,
*
with all their vast array.
All things quake with fear at
your presence; *
they tremble because of your power.
But your merciful promise is beyond
all measure; *
it surpasses all that our minds can fathom.
O Lord, you are full of compassion,
*
long-suffering, and abounding in mercy.
You hold back your hand; *
you do not punish as we deserve.
In your great goodness, Lord,
you have promised forgiveness to sinners,*
that they may repent of their sin and be saved.
And now, O Lord, I bend the knee
of my heart, *
and make my appeal, sure of your gracious goodness.
I have sinned, O Lord, I have
sinned, *
and I know my wickedness only too well.
Therefore I make this prayer to
you: *
Forgive me, Lord, forgive me.
Do not let me perish in my sin,
*
nor condemn me to the depths of the earth.
For you, O Lord, are the God of
those who repent, *
and in me you will show forth your goodness.
Unworthy as I am, you will save
me,
in accordance with your great mercy, *
and I will praise you without ceasing all the days of my life.
For all the powers of heaven sing
your praises, *
and yours is the glory to ages of ages. Amen.
2 Corinthians 2:14-3:6
14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him.
15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing;
16 to the one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?
17 For we are not peddlers of God's word like so many; but in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God and standing in his presence.
1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we?
2 You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all;
3 and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God.
5 Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God,
6who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Mark 10:1-16
1 He left that place and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan. And crowds again gathered around him; and, as was his custom, he again taught them.
2 Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"
3 He answered them, "What did Moses command you?"
4 They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her."
5 But Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you.
6 But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.'
7 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,
8 and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh.
9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."
10 Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter.
11 He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her;
12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."
13 People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them.
14 But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.
15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it."
16And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
Canticle 16 The Song of Zechariah Blessed be the Lord, the God
of Israel;* He has raised up for us a mighty
savior,* that he would save us from our
enemies,* he promised to show mercy to
our fathers* This was the oath he swore to
our father Abraham,* Free to worship him without fear,* You, my child, shall be called
the prophet of the Most High,* To give his people knowledge
of salvation* In the tender compassion of our
God* To shine on those who dwell in
darkness and the shadow of death,* Glory
to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit Gregory the Great 11 March 604
Only two popes, Leo I and Gregory I, have been given the popular title of "the Great." Both served during difficult times of barbarian invasions in Italy; and during Gregory's term of office, Rome was also faced with famine and epidemics. Gregory was born around 540, of a politically influential family, and in 573 he became Prefect of Rome; but shortly afterwards he resigned his office and began to live as a monk. In 579 he was made apocrisiarius (representative of the Pope to the Patriarch of Constantinople). Shortly after his return home, the Pope died of the plague, and in 590 Gregory was elected Pope. Like Leo before him, he became practical governor of central Italy, because the job needed to be done and there was no one else to do it. When the Lombards invaded, he organized the defense of Rome against them, and the eventual signing of a treaty with them. When there was a shortage of food, he organized the importation and distribution of grain from Sicily. His influence on the forms of public worship throughout Western Europe was enormous. He founded a school for the training of church musicians, and Gregorian chant (plainchant) is named for him. The schedule of Scripture readings for the various Sundays of the year, and the accompanying prayers (many of them written by him), in use throughout most of Western Christendom for the next thirteen centuries, is largely due to his passion for organization. His treatise, On Pastoral Care, while not a work of creative imagination, shows a dedication to duty, and an understanding of what is required of a minister in charge of a Christian congregation. His sermons are still readable today, and it is not without reason that he is accounted (along with Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine of Hippo) as one of the Four Latin Doctors (=Teachers) of the ancient Church. (Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzen, Basil the Great, and John Chrysostom are the Four Greek Doctors.) English-speaking Christians will remember Gregory for sending a party of missionaries headed by Augustine of Canterbury (not to be confused with the more famous Augustine of Hippo) to preach the Gospel to the pagan Anglo-Saxon tribes that had invaded England and largely conquered or displaced the Celtic Christians previously living there. Gregory had originally hoped to go to England as a missionary himself, but was pressed into service elsewhere, first as apocrisiarius and then as bishop of Rome. He accordingly sent others, but took an active interest in their work, writing numerous letters both to Augustine and his monks and to their English converts. I here mention something that was not Gregory's doing, but is an important part of Church history. It was in Gregory's lifetime that Rome, and with it the Western Empire, with astonishing suddenness, and for no reason that I know of, went monolingual. For more than six centuries previously, Greek had been spoken at Rome along with Latin. Every Roman with pretensions to being educated could speak it. Everyone involved in shipping and commerce, from banker to stevedore, could speak it. The list of the early Bishops of Rome has a fair proportion of Greek names. When Paul wrote an epistle to the Romans, he wrote in Greek as a matter of course. But in Gregory's lifetime this changed. Gregory was ambassador to the Eastern Patriarch at Constantinople for six years, but he never bothered to learn Greek. And in his day (not, as far as I have any reason to believe, as a result of his example or influence) most other Latin-speakers did not trouble to learn Greek either. The already existing difficulties of communication between Latin and Greek theologians were greatly exacerbated by this development. Increasingly, Latins did not read the commentaries and other writings of Greek Christians, and vice versa. Thus differences between the two that dialogue might have resolved were left to accumulate, culminating in the formal split between Latin and Greek Christendom in 1054. If I were to select a ground on which this devout Christian of great accomplishments might reasonably be censured, it would be that his Dialogues, a book on the Lives of the Saints, is full of accounts of dreams and visions that various persons were said to have had of souls in Purgatory. Gregory, a man of keen critical judgement on many matters, was completely uncritical in his acceptance of these stories. A general belief in Purgatory was standard among Christians when he wrote; but his reliance on "ghost stories" to fill in the imaginative details gave the doctrine as held thereafter in Latin Christendom both a prominence and a coloring that it had not previously had, with results that many Christians, including adherents of the Pope, have thought regrettable. written by James Kiefer Prayer Almighty and merciful God, who raised up Gregory of Rome to be a servant of the servants of God, and inspired him to send missionaries to preach the Gospel to the English people: Preserve in your Church the catholic and apostolic faith they taught, that your people, being fruitful in every good work, may receive the crown of glory that never fades away; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Apostles' Creed I believe in God, the Father almighty, I believe in Jesus Christ, his
only son, our Lord. I believe in the Holy Spirit,
The Lord's Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
For thine is the kingdom,
Suffrages A
Show us your mercy, O Lord;
Clothe your ministers with righteousness;
Give peace, O Lord, in all the world;
Lord, keep this nation under your care;
Let your way be known upon earth;
Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten;
Create in us clean hearts, O God;
Collect of the
Day: Fifth Sunday in Lent Almighty God, you alone can bring into order
the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people
grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that,
among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may
surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through
Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
A Collect for Peace
O God, the author of peace and
lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you
is perfect freedom: Defend us, your humble servants, in all assaults
of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in your defense, may
not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.
For Mission O God, you have made of one blood
all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach
peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant
that people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring
the nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh,
and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.
World Cycle of Prayer
We pray for the people of Guinea.
Ecumenical Cycle of Prayer
We pray for our sisters and brothers, members of the Seventh-Day Adventists.
Luke 1:68-79
he has come to his people and set them free.
born of the house of his servant David.
Through his holy prophets he promised of old,
from the hands of all who hate us.
and to remember his holy covenant.
to set us free from the hands of our enemies,
holy and righteous in his sight
all the days of our life.
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,
by the forgiveness of their sins.
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.
as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
creator of heaven and earth.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
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.
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
And grant us your salvation.
Let your people sing with joy.
For only in you can we live in safety.
And guide us in the way of justice and truth.
Your saving health among all nations.
Nor the hope of the poor be taken away.
And sustain us with your Holy Spirit.
For Peace
Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and glory, now and for ever. Amen.
For our Country
Almighty God, who has given us this good land for our heritage: We humbly beseech you that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of your favor and glad to do your will. Bless our land with honorable industry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion; from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion us into one united people. Endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in your Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that, through obedience to your law, we may show forth your praise among the nations of the earth. In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in you to fail; all which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.For the President of the
United States
and all in Civil Authority
O Lord our Governor, whose glory is in all the world: We commend this nation to your merciful care, that, being guided by your Providence, we may dwell secure in your peace. Grant to the President of the United States, the Governor of this State (or, Commonwealth), and to all in authority, wisdom and strength to know and to do your will. Fill them with the love of truth and righteousness, and make them ever mindful of their calling to serve this people in your fear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. 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.
General Thanksgiving
Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks for all your goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all whom you have made. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for your immeasurable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies, that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory throughout all ages. Amen.A Prayer of St. Chrysostom
Almighty God, you have given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplication to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the midst of them: Fulfill now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the age to come life everlasting. Amen.
Benediction
Let us bless the Lord.
Thanks be to God.Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:20,21