Lectionary readings (Click the links to see the readings):
Isaiah 50.4-9 | Psalm 70 | Hebrews 12.1-3 | John 13.21-32

For sins against others

Hear me Father, as I make my confessions. I thank you that you receive me as I am—not as I pretend to be. I am so tired of pretending.

Forgive me for the times I have succeeded in deceiving my friends and loved ones, for I knew I did not deceive you. In sinning against others, I know that I have sinned against you. For have you not said plainly that those who claim to love God, and yet hate their brothers and sisters, are liars?

Father, I know that in my ignorance I have cast a shadow upon many. I have stood in the way of their discovery of your way and your presence. Oh God, forgive me.
I have thought often of myself and my own deeds, seldom of my fellow human beings and of their needs. O God give me selflessness.
I have been unwilling to forgive others, yet have had the audacity to ask you to forgive me. I ask you for an understanding heart.
I have criticised other people in order to inflate my own importance. I ask you, O God, for a generous heart.
I have tried by reason and the twisting of my conscience to rationalise wrong into right.
There have been times when I told the truth only because I believed it was expedient to do so. O God, help me to love truth and honesty for their own sakes, that I may do right simply because I know it is right to do right.
I have sought the spotlight, yet am not big enough to stand in it. I want to be renowned for great deeds, and all the while am notorious for small performances.

I know that love for others is a gift of yours. How much I desire it! Yet I cannot manufacture it. Increase, I pray, your giving to me, that I may have more love toward other people.

So may I go from this place to live my Christianity every day, in the things I shall say to others, in the things I shall do for others, in the way I shall live with others, that my own witness may be made to the love of Christ Jesus, my Lord.

—The Prayers of Peter Marshall, edited by Catherine Marshall. London: Peter Davies, 1955.

Jesus falls under the weight of the cross.

J.S. Bach. In meines Herzens Grunde [Within my heart's foundation]; chorale no. 8 from the St. John Passion (BWV 245, 1724). The Monteverdi Choir and The English Baroque Soloists, dir. John Eliot Gardiner.