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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

Father, as I face this new day, let me be aware of the work you have done for me as I slept. I praise you that your loving care never slumbers, but has been with me while I was least aware of it; and that you renew me and the whole world, fresh every day, preparing your plans for me.

I pray that I may seek your will this day, your plan for my life, and carry out your plan in my every action. I lay my hopes and fears on an altar before you, that your Holy Spirit may guide my hopes toward the light of your holiness, and may quiet my fears with the knowledge of your infinite peace, in total confidence that your grace will save me from the evils of this world. In Jesus' name I pray,

Meditation

[I lay my fears on the altar before Christ.]

For God’s Holy Church

Father of mercy, your love embraces everyone, and through the Resurrection of your Son you call me and all the members of your church into your wonderful light. Dispel our darkness and make us a people with one heart and one voice, forever singing your praise, in Jesus, the Christ, our Lord.

by Mason Barge

Benediction (from Colossians 3)

Let the word of Christ richly dwell within me all this day; and whatever I do in word or deed, may I do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

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.

Proverbs 11:9 (KJV)

Matthew 23:25-26 (ESV)

Hypocrites: Cups Cleaned on the Outside

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

Notes on the Scripture

Most Christian commentators skirt around a rather obvious problem the modern reader has Christ's criticisms of Pharisaic washing rituals; the Pharisees were cleaner than just about anyone else, and in respect to several of their hygiene laws, we might find ourselves partly on their side! This is especially true with washing their hands before eating or when coming back from the market, and washing eating and drinking vessels.

One might infer from today's Scripture, however, that they washed the outside of a drinking cup but not the inside, and there we see the split between modern hygiene and ritual washing. But, truth be told, we just don't know exactly what all the Pharisees did or didn't do, except that they followed hundreds of weird and minute oral laws as their means of becoming righteous before God.

The point Jesus makes is this. In a moral sense, in the eyes of God, which would be better: To drink honest wine from an unclean cup, or to drink wine that you had stolen from a clean one?

That's what He is saying here. He is not telling us not to wash our dishes. He is telling us that being clean on the inside is what will save our souls. Our relationship with God is more important than our relationship with the earth, our souls more important than our bodies.

In a word:

Ascension from the Hunterian Psalter, English ca. 1170. In this scene from Acts 1:9-11 we can only see Jesus' feet. The three-dimensional ornamentation in the margin is unusual for the time.

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