Day Eight — 18 February

Hear our voice, O Lord, according to your faithful love.

Lectionary readings (Click the links to see the readings): Additions to Esther 14.3-11 | Psalm 138.1-3 | Matthew 7.7-12

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Marney Ward (Canada). Golden Azaleas. Watercolor.

All the Time in the World

End of all our beginnings, Lord of time, who alone makes time a gift, remind us we are creatures with a beginning. We confess we often forget we are your timeful creatures. We fear the forgetfulness our death beckons. We are driven frantically to work, thinking we can ensure we will not be forgotten, ensure our own place in time. How silly we must look to you, ants building anthills to no purpose. Help us take joy and rest in your time, eucharistic time, a time redeemed through Jesus' resurrection, that we can rest easy in our dying. You have given us all the time in the world. May we take pleasure in it.

The Only True Time

Lord of time, who became time by calling Abraham and Sarah to be our forebears, we confess we are not sure we are ready for all this. Our lives so often feel like the meandering of those lost in a wood so thick we cannot even tell when we recross our previous paths. We undo what was done and then complain we have no past, nothing gained. We are so busy but we fear our busyness is but a distraction necessary to hide from ourselves that we are lost and do not know where we are. Help us to take time to rest, confident that the time created by Christ's resurrection is our only true time. Grant us serenity.

—Stanley Hauerwas, Prayers Plainly Spoken (Downer's Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1999)

Let all Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of the Apostles.

May God our Redeemer show us compassion and love. Amen.



St Philip's Anglican Church, cnr Moorhouse and Macpherson Streets, O'Connor, ACT 2602
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