Prayers and Poems
for September |
|
All good gifts around us
This poem by Matthias Claudius
has become a favourite harvest hymn.
We plough the fields and scatter
The good seed on the land.
But it is fed and watered
By God's almighty hand.
He sends the snow in winter,
The warmth to swell the grain,
The breezes and the sunshine,
And soft, refreshing rain:
All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above;
Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord,
For all his love.
The Harvest
Alice C Henderson looks back on
summer fields…
The silver rain, the shining sun,
The fields where scarlet poppies run,
And all the ripples of the wheat
Are in the bread that I do eat.
So when I sit for every meal
And say a grace, I always feel
That I am eating rain and sun,
And fields where scarlet poppies run.
As you did it to the least
of these….
The early Celts were keenly
aware of Christ's command to love our neighbours. This
is from 'Celtic Fire'
Remember the poor when you look out on fields you own,
on your plump cows grazing.
Remember the poor when you look into your barn
at the abundance of your harvest.
Remember the poor when the wind howls and the rain falls,
as you sit warm in your dry house….
The poor have no food except what you feed them
No shelter except your house when you welcome them,
No warmth except your glowing fire.
A prayer for student days:
for faith and fruitful study
Here is a prayer used at King's
College,
Almighty
Father, grant that our universities and colleges may be
houses of faith and fruitful study; and that their
students may so learn truth as to bear its light along
all their ways, and so learn Christ as to be found in
him; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy
Spirit, one God, world without end.
My daily labour to pursue
Here is a prayer of Charles
Wesley - for everyone heading back to work this autumn
Forth in your name, O Lord I go,
My daily labour to pursue,
You, only you, resolved to know
In all I think, or speak or do.
The task your wisdom has assigned
O let me cheerfully fulfil,
In all my works your presence find,
And prove your good and perfect will.
