Morning Prayer: Love
Updated: Sep 2, 2020
The Call to Prayer
O magnify YHWH with me, and let us exalt God’s name together.
Psalm 34:3
The Request for Presence
Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning, for in you I put my trust. Teach me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.
Psalm 143:8
The Greeting
YHWH is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
YHWH is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.
All your works shall give thanks to you, O YHWH, and all your faithful shall bless you.
Psalm 145:8-10
The Hymn
Make me a channel of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me bring your love;
where there is injury, your healing power,
and where there’s doubt, true faith in you.
Make me a channel of your peace:
where there’s despair in life let me bring hope;
and where there is darkness, only light,
and where there’s sadness, every joy.
O spirit, grant that I may never seek
so much to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love with all my soul.
Make me a channel of your peace:
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
in giving to all that we receive,
and in dying that we’re born to eternal life.
Prayer of St. Francis
PCC Hymn #740 Make me a channel of your peace
The Refrain
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Those who do not love do not know God. [Why?] Because God is love.
1 John 4:7-8
A Reading
Love is not selfish and self-centred. Love can be sacrificial, and in so doing, becomes redemptive. And that way of unselfish, sacrificial, redemptive love changes lives, and it can change this world. If you don't believe me, just stop and imagine. Think and imagine a world where love is the way. Imagine our homes and families where love is the way. Imagine neighbourhoods and communities where love is the way. Imagine governments and nations where love is the way. Imagine business and commerce where this love is the way. Imagine this tired old world where love is the way. When love is the way - unselfish, sacrificial, redemptive.
When love is the way, then no child will go to bed hungry in this world ever again. When love is the way, we will let justice roll down like a mighty stream and righteousness like an ever-flowing brook. When love is the way, poverty will become history. When love is the way, the earth will be a sanctuary. When love is the way, we will lay down our swords and shields, down by the riverside, to study war no more. When love is the way, there's plenty good room - plenty good room - for all of God's children. Because when love is the way, we actually treat each other, well... like we are actually family. When love is the way, we know that God is the source of us all, and we are [siblings], children of God. ...That's a new heaven, a new earth, a new world, a new human family.
Bishop Michael Curry, Royal Wedding Sermon
The Refrain
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Those who do not love do not know God. [Why?] Because God is love.
1 John 4:7-8
The Psalm
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits—
who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
The Lord works vindication and justice for all who are oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel.
The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He will not always accuse, nor will he keep his anger for ever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust.
As for mortals, their days are like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.
But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children,
to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.
The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.
Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, obedient to his spoken word.
Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers that do his will.
Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul.
Psalm 103
The Refrain
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Those who do not love do not know God. [Why?] Because God is love.
1 John 4:7-8
The Gloria
All glory to Almighty and God
for love so deep, so high, so broad!
The Trinity whom we adore
forever and forever more.
15th c. Latin, translated by Benjamin Webb
PCC Hymn #205 O love, how deep, how broad, how high
The Lord’s Prayer
The Prayer Appointed for the Day
O God, you have taught us that without love, whatever we do is worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit and pour into my heart your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you. Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Phyllis Tickle
The Concluding Prayer of the Church
Almighty and everlasting God, you have brought me in safety to the beginning of this day. Preserve me with your mighty power, that I may not fall into sin, nor be overcome with adversity; and in all I do, direct me to the fulfilling of your purposes; through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.
Phyllis Tickle
Inspired by Phyllis Tickle’s The Divine Hours, Pocket Edition