OPENING PRAYER
Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling. Psalm 43:3 ESV
THE REFRAIN
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well. Psalm 139:14 ESV
THE WORD OF GOD/A READING
Matthew 6:25-34 ESV
Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
THE REFRAIN
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well. Psalm 139:14 ESV
PRAYERS
O Christ our rest, we pause amidst the labors of this day to remember the best reason for our laboring. We labor, O Lord, as stewards of your creation, and as stewards of the gifts you have apportioned to each of us for the good of all. Bless then the works of our hands and minds and hearts, O God, that they might bear fruit for your greater purposes. May our work this day be rendered first as service to you, that the benefits of it might be eternal. Receive this, the offering of our labors, O Lord. Amen. – Douglas McKelvey, Excerpt from A Liturgy of The Hours: Midday
CONCLUSION
A Collect for Guidance (BCP 82)Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.