Staying Safe and Staying Connected
Good Morning Saint Stephen’s Church,
We continue our life of daily prayer. The Lord be with you!
Today’s Prayer
Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration.
O God, who on the holy mount revealed to chosen witnesses your well-beloved Son, wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistening: Mercifully grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may by faith behold the King in his beauty; who with you, O Father, and you, O Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Book of Common Prayer, p. 243
It is also the 75th anniversary of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima.
A Prayer of Remembrance
O God, the Creator of this beautiful planet
Rev. Nobu Hanaoka
and all that dwells in it,
we now pause to remember the souls
of those who perished in the atomic bombings
and those who suffer from radiation even now.
We join our hearts and voices together
to pray for peace everywhere.
May the deadly power of nuclear arsenals
never be unleashed again upon your sacred creation.
May such weapons of mass and indiscriminate annihilations
be forever banned and eliminated from the face of the earth.
Forgive our silence, O God,
and enable your Church to raise its prophetic voices
to speak against the madness of nuclear pursuits anywhere.
Renew our commitment to be faithful stewards
of your beautiful creation
and vehicles of peace.
In the name of Christ, our Prince of Peace. Amen.
From Our Prayers of the People
Today, let us pray:
For the just and proper use of your creation: for the victims of hunger, fear, injustice, and oppression.
For comfort and healing for all who are affected by the Coronavirus: for physicians, nurses, and all others who minister to the sick and the suffering, may God grant them wisdom and skill, sympathy and patience, and may God keep them healthy and safe.
For all essential workers: for police, firefighters, EMTs, postal workers, sanitation workers, grocery personnel, delivery and transport workers, and all who must report to work because what they do is essential for our well-being, health, and safety.
For those on the Parish Prayer Chain Mary Luca, Brittney, Mary Alice, Mia, Wim, Corrie, Doris, Judy, Anne, Louise and Gertrude.
For those who are homebound: Stephen Gray, Pauline Northrop, Joan Halstead, Janet Schlansker and Marilyn Causey.
Our Government Leaders: Donald Trump, President of the United States; Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York State; Gary McCarthy, Mayor of Schenectady
Our Church Leaders: Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop, William Love, and Daniel Herzog our bishops; James and Dennie our priests; Pat our deacon and Allison our Lay Reader
Those who are imprisoned: those particularly vulnerable at this time, especially the women in the Schenectady County Jail.
For those in need of healing: Sid, Vicki, Jean, Cindi, Mary Frances, Debbie and Joe.
For all the blessings of this life.
For our dioceses in the Anglican Communion: Ogbomoso (Nigeria), Botswana (Central Africa), Brandon (Canada).
For all who have died: especially Anita, Elizabeth, Joanne, Joseph, Peter, Donald, William, Robert, Julie and Cynthia.
For one another.
Something to share
In the silence, whether we listen to the
M. Basil Pennington
creation around us, the words of
revelation, or the
deepest stirrings of our own hearts, we
begin to perceive
another voice, one that is too often lost
in the static of life.
It is no use staying, “Speak Lord,
your servant wants to hear,”
if we never risk, the silence to listen.
Transfigured and Transfixed
Noon in Galilee, Dawn by the Japanese sea.
Rob Esdaile
The Spirit hovers silently, while the Enola Gay drones away.
Four men on a mountain top; 350,000 down in the valley.
The Son of Man and a bomb Christened ‘Little Boy’.
Silently the cloud descends; just as silently a parachute unfurls.
Four men see nothing but Jesus, while 75,000 are never seen again.
Whiter than any new bleached cloth the face of Christ,
brighter than a thousand suns the flash.
“This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him.”
This is the nuclear age, be very afraid.
And the clouds weep their atomic rain.
Christ transfigured and the world transfixed,
the dawning of the light of Christ,
the beginning of the nuclear winter.
The date of both – August 6.
Reminders
If you have an update/news, a prayer or poem or something inspirational you would like us to share with the congregation, please send it to us. Please also send us any prayer requests. We will incorporate these into the Morning Prayers as best we can.
If you need a prayerbook, and are not in a position to purchase one, please contact me: james.ross.mcd@gmail.com. I will make sure you have your own Book of Common Prayer.
Prayerbook Morning Prayer in Zoom – each morning. Join Dennie and me for an inter-active service of Morning Prayer at 9 am. Time to bring your prayer concerns will be provided. (contact me for the link: james.ross.mcd@gmail.com)
Our church campus is closed, except for our Eucharistic Ingathering on Sundays at 9:00 am. Please see our website for further information: https://st-stephens.church. All other parish meetings and gatherings are canceled and postponed until further notice.
Our goal is for all of us to stay in touch and connected in this time of isolation.
Share this news, and spread some love, not the virus!
Irish Blessing
May the road rise up to meet you,
May the wind be at your back,
May the sun shine upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
Be of good courage. We are in this together, and we will be together again soon. God bless you and may God be with us in the days ahead.
Peace,
James+