Patrick Comerford
Today is Christmas Eve, and we have arrived at the end of the fourth and last week of Advent. Tomorrow is Christmas Day. Throughout this time of preparation for Christ’s coming at Christmas, I have been praying each morning in Advent and using for my reflections the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency, USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).
This week, the prayers in the USPG Prayer Diary focus on the church’s support for children worldwide, drawing insights from the work of the Delhi Brotherhood Society with children and women.
The USPG Prayer Diary:
Saturday 24 December 2016:
Pray that children the world over might know the love and protection of caregivers who are sensitive to their needs. Pray that caregivers might know God’s strength.
Readings (Revised Common Lectionary, the Church of Ireland, Holy Communion):
II Samuel 7: 1-5, 8-11, 16; Psalm 89: 2, 19-27; Acts 13: 16-26; Luke 1: 67-79.
The Collect of the Day:
Almighty God,
you make us glad with the yearly remembrance
of the birth of your Son Jesus Christ:
Grant that, as we joyfully receive him as our redeemer,
We may with sure confidence behold him
when he shall come to be our judge;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Advent Collect:
Almighty God,
Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and to put on the armour of light
now in the time of this mortal life
in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
that on the last day
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer
God for whom we wait,
you feed us with the bread of eternal life:
Keep us ever watchful, that we may be ready
to stand before the Son of Man, Jesus Christ our Lord.
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