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Lord's Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

Prayer for the Morning

Heavenly Father, let me live this day as the gift it is, for You has truly blessed me to live it. And if I may suffer, I will carry with me the certainty that one day I will see You face to face, a day when all things will become clear and my pain will be made whole through the grace of Christ, my God. Blessed be you, oh Lord my God, and blessed be the day you have given me.

Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Benediction

Oh Lord Jesus Christ, who said to your apostles, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you"; I pray that I and your whole church, the body of all faithful people, will know your peace, and live in harmony and unity, one with another, in accordance with your wishes. This I pray to you, who lives and reigns forever.

Think of the day ahead in terms of God with you, and visualize health, strength, guidance, purity, calm confidence, and victory as the gifts of His presence.

Christian Education

Jonah 2

Jonah's Prayer

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying,

“I called out to the Lord, out of my distress,
    and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
     and you heard my voice.

For you cast me into the deep,
     into the heart of the seas,
     and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
     passed over me.

Then I said, 'I am driven away from your sight;
    yet I shall again look.'

The waters closed in over me to take my life;
     the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped about my head
    at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
     whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the pit,
     O Lord my God.

When my life was fainting away,
     I remembered the Lord,
and my prayer came to you,
     into your holy temple.

Those who pay regard to vain idols
     forsake their hope of steadfast love.

But I with the voice of thanksgiving
     will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.
     Salvation belongs to the Lord!”

And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

Notes on the Scripture

Jonah's prayer, in the form of a psalm, is laden with meaning and makes unmistakable metaphor of the entire incident. He directly compares the whale to Sheol, the Hebrew concept of hell. But oddly, he does not treat his own disobedience or sinfulness, nor speak directly of his odd circumstances. It is a general psalm, praising God for his mercy in saving a man from the punishment inflicted on him by the world.

Jonah spends three days in the whale's belly, just as Jesus would spend three days in death before his resurrection. It is said that Christ descended into hell during that time, in order to offer salvation to all those who had died before His coming.

So Jonah becomes, with this prayer, an important prophet of the Messiah, for his song is a statement of confidence and thanks that God will rescue those who have been condemned by the forces of earth. We do not have to stretch far, to say that the inescapable sinfulness of mankind is the product of being created to live on earth, or that sin comes from our mortal incarnation.

Jonah contrasts people who worship idols, because they have forsaken their "hope of steadfast love". But for those who worship God, that steadfast love will come to save them from the pit (of hell), even though God's wrath has put them there. Thus Jonah specifically, if indirectly, prophesies the three days following the crucifixion, when Christ will offer His salvation to those who have already died,

And immediately after, we get the wonderful last line, "the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land." He is saved from his destruction, as the faithful dead would one day be saved in the three days of Jesus' death.

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