This Advent, I am simply offering some prayers for your
Advent devotions. Each week, I’ll include the Collect from the Episcopal Book
of Common Prayer for that Sunday. I’ve added the Collect from Women’s
Uncommon Prayers, a collection of prayers by women in the church from 2000.
This feminine leaning set of prayers can offer a different insight into our
spiritual journey. I’ll also include a prayer from Daily Prayer for All
Seasons, compiled in 2014. I have also added one for each week from The
Lives we Actually Have by Kate Bowler. The Bowler book is a resource I just
recently learned about, and it is definitely one to add to your collection.
Each week in Advent traditionally has a theme. Hope—Love—Joy—Peace. The prayers help us focus on that theme. Use this offering however you feel led. You can pray all of them each weekday, use them just on Sunday, pray one a day, etc. May your Advent journey be blessed this year.
Creator God, from whose womb the sea burst forth: Be with us now as we seek with your grace to give birth to a new creation filled with justice and peace, harmony and concord, unity and love for all; in the name of your Child whom we await, Jesus Christ our Redeemer. Amen. (Women’s Uncommon Prayers)
God, these are darkening days, with little hope in sight.
Help us in our fear and exhaustion. Anchor us in hope.
Blessed are we with eyes open to see the accumulated
suffering of danger, sickness, and loneliness, the injustice of racial
oppression, the unimpeded greed and misuse of power, violence, intimidation,
and the use of dominance for its own sake, the mockery of truth, and disdain
for weakness or vulnerability – and worse, the seeming powerlessness of anyone
trying to stop it.
Blessed are we who ask: Where are you, God? And where are
your people—the smart and sensible ones who fight for the good and have the
power to make it stick?
Blessed are we who cry out: Oh God, why does the bad always
seem to win? When will good prevail? We know you are good, be we see so little
goodness.
God, show us your heart, how you seek out the broken. Lift
us on your shoulders, and carry us home—no matter how strong we think we are.
God, seek us out, and find us, we your tired people, and
lead us out to where hope lies, where your kingdom will come and your will be
done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Fill us with your courage.
Calm us with your love.
fortify us with your hope.
PS Open your hands as you release your prayers. Then take
hold of hope. As protest. (The Lives we Actually Have/Kate Bowler)
Merciful God of peace, your word, spoken by the prophets, restores your people’s life and hope: Fill our hearts with the joy of your saving grace, that we may hold fast to your great goodness and proclaim your justice in all the world. Amen (Daily Prayer for All Seasons)
