Lord Save Thy People

Prayers please

For all those effected by yesterday's violence. Lord have mercy!

METROPOLITAN ONUPHRY APPEALS FOR PENITENTIAL PRAYER AND AN END TO THE “FRATRICIDAL WAR”

Dear brothers and sisters! The faithful of our Ukrainian Orthodox Church!

As the primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, I appeal to you and to all citizens of Ukraine. A disaster has occurred. Unfortunately, Russia has launched military actions against Ukraine, and at this fateful time I urge you not to panic, to be courageous, and to show love for your homeland and for each other. I call you, above all, to intensified penitential prayer for Ukraine, for our army, and our people, and I entreat you to lay aside mutual strife and misunderstandings and unite in love for God and our motherland.

At this tragic time, we express our fervent love and support to our soldiers standing guard and protecting and defending our land and our people. May God bless and keep them!

Defending the sovereignty and integrity of Ukraine, we appeal to the President of Russia and ask him to immediately stop the fratricidal war. The Ukrainian and Russian peoples came out of the Dnieper Baptismal font, and the war between these peoples is a repetition of the sin of Cain, who killed his own brother out of envy. Such a war has no justification either from God or from people.

I call everyone to common sense, which teaches us to solve our earthly problems in mutual dialogue and mutual understanding, and I sincerely hope that God will forgive us our sins and that God’s peace will reign on our land and throughout the world!

Source

Prayers for Cardinal Burke

Word from NLM that His Eminence has been hospitalized with Covid. It sounds serious. Card. Burke is one of the good guys in the ongoing crisis in the Roman Church and is known to be high on Frank's enemies list. If my memory has not failed I believe he was the first really prominent conservative prelate to be purged by the then new regime. 

Hymn to the Theotokos

Lord Save Thy People

Dutch bishops update wording of the Lord's prayer

November 30, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Dutch Catholics are raising alarm bells after the bishops of the Netherlands and Belgium changed the words to the Our Father in a way that they believe amounts to an "ideological reinterpretation of the text."

Dutch Catholics who still attend weekly Mass heard a newly-worded Our Father last Sunday that no longer asked God the Father, as Jesus taught, “to lead us not into temptation” but, instead, “not into trial.”

Vox Populi, an orthodox Catholic lay group, is organizing a petition advocating the traditional translation. “Why would this ‘reform’ be necessary now? There is not a single pastoral need to come up with a ‘new common Dutch-Flemish translation’ of the ‘Our Father.’”

Recent Dutch Catholic history is so marked by destructive innovation that in 1996 one faithful scholar declared the situation had long passed the “crisis” phase and achieved “ruin.”

The former translation of the Latin “temptationem” was “bekoring,” or “temptation.” The new version replaces that with “beproeving,” which means in English, “test,” “ordeal,” or “tribulation.”

Read the rest here.

And the hits just keep on coming...

LORD SAVE THY PEOPLE

In light of recent events...

Supreme Court OKs Prayer at Government Meetings

A divided Supreme Court ruled Monday that legislative bodies such as city councils can begin their meetings with prayer, even if it plainly favors the religion of the speaker.

The court ruled 5 to 4 that Christian prayers given before meetings of an upstate New York town council did not violate the constitutional prohibition against government establishment of religion.

Read the rest here.

It never rains but it pours

Only a month after the passing of my step-father, my dad is going under the knife tomorrow for urgent double bypass and heart valve replacement surgery. At 78 there are obviously significant risks. Yet again, I beg for your prayers.

Saturday Fast

A quick reminder that Pope Francis has appealed for a day of fasting and prayer on behalf of peace in Syria to be observed tomorrow. This appeal was not restricted to Catholics and appears to be voluntary for all concerned. Right now I can think of few better causes for a day of prayer and voluntary fasting.

Events

Obviously things are moving at a very fast pace. Bombs, poison letters, people have been shot. There is a manhunt going on. And also let's not forget that a small town in Texas has been nearly leveled in an aggro-industrial explosion. A large percentage of their fire department, all volunteers, have been killed along with many other people.

This is a time for prayer.

No blogging for a while.

In secular Britain, a clash over public prayer

Bideford, England — Perhaps the locals should have anticipated sparks on a town council stocked not only with a practicing pagan, a staunch atheist and an agnostic former stripper but also two evangelical Christians and a Methodist church organist. But few could have predicted that one small town’s fight over the abolition of Christian prayers at public meetings would escalate into Britain’s own culture wars.

Even as the Republican primaries highlight America’s divide over the separation of church and state, Britain finds itself locked in a debate over religion that is entangling not just the British government but even Queen Elizabeth II. The move to ban public prayers in tiny Bideford — and potentially across all of England and Wales — has erupted into a national proxy fight over the question of whether Christianity should still hold a privileged place in a modern, diverse and now highly secular society.

The match that lit the fires was struck in this quaint town, site of the last witch trials in Britain. Local lawmaker Clive Bone, an atheist, was backed by four of his peers in challenging the long-standing tradition of opening public meetings with blessings by Christian clergy. After losing two council votes on the prayer ban, Bone took the town to court — winning a ruling last month that appeared to set a legal precedent by saying government had no authority to compel citizens to hear prayer.

The Conservative-led British government has quickly attempted to counteract the ban and defend the official status of Christianity — more specifically, the Church of England. At a time when half of Britons claim no religious affiliation, however, the Conservatives are also going one step further — blaming a loss of “traditional values” for such social ills as binge drinking and last year’s riots in London.

In a nation where the Labor Party spin-doctor Alastair Campbell once said, “We don’t do God,” the Conservatives in power have unleashed a number of moves seen by opponents as an attempt to claw back lost ground for Christian traditions — including a vow by the national education minister to send a King James Bible to every school in England.

Even normally behind-the-scenes Queen Elizabeth is dusting off the monarch’s historic role as “defender of the faith” and supreme governor of the Church of England, suggesting in recent weeks that by targeting public prayer, secular society has gone too far.

Read the rest here.

Prayers for the approach of death

1. When, exhausted by illness, I sense that the end of my earthly existence is approaching: Lord, have mercy upon me.


2. When my poor heart, beating its last, is languishing and pining in the pangs of death: Lord, have mercy upon me.


3. When for the last time, my eyes fill with tears at the thought that with sins throughout my life I have offended Thee, O God: Lord, have mercy upon me.


4. When my rapid heartbeat speeds the departure of my soul: Lord, have mercy upon me.


5. When my face‘s deadly pallor and my cooling body strikes fear into those dear to me: Lord, have mercy upon me.

Read the rest here.

A prayer for internet thugs

Fr. Z's blog was hacked the other day and he, being a good Christian responded by composing a litany for the conversion of internet thugs.

From Fr. Z...

Litany for the conversion of internet thugs.
(private use only, and when truly irritated, and when the alternative is foul language)

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, graciously hear us.
God, the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.
God, the Son, Redeemer of the World, have mercy on us.
God, the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.

Lest internet thugs be eternally tormented by all the fiends of hell, convert them, O Lord.
Lest they pass eternity in utter despair, convert them, O Lord.
Lest they come to be damned for the harm they cause, convert them, O Lord.
Lest they roast forever in the deepest cinders of hell, convert them, O Lord.
Lest they suffer the unceasing pain of loss, convert them, O Lord.

Lest devils endlessly increase their physical agony, convert them, O Lord.
Lest devils twist their bowels and boil their blood in hell, convert them, O Lord.
Lest devils use them as their toys and tools, convert them, O Lord.
Lest devils gnaw on their skulls, convert them, O Lord.

Lest the innocent be harmed by their sins, convert them, O Lord.
Lest the innocent yield to them in weakness, convert them, O Lord.
Lest the innocent be drawn into their traps, convert them, O Lord.

From faceless Facebook admin drones, spare us O Lord.
From tweeting Twitter idiots, spare us O Lord.
From from heart-hardened spammers, spare us O Lord.
From rss feed problems, spare us O Lord.
From server memory resource difficulties, spare us O Lord.

From viruses, trojan horses, and all manner of snares, Lord save us.
From wasting our time, Lord save us.
From our own stupidity, Lord save us.

St. Isidore, defend us.
St. Francis de Sales, defend us.
St. Gabriel, defend us.
St. Michael, defend us.
Guardian angels, defend us.
All the angels and saints….. GRRRRR.

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Lord,
Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

V. Christ, Jesus who died for our sins.
R. Return, and return swiftly.

Let us pray.
Almighty and eternal God,
who according to an ineffable plan
called us into existence to do your will
amid the vicissitudes and contagion of this world
grant, we beseech you,
through your mercy and grace
both to protect the innocent who use the tools of this digital age
and to convert from their evil ways all those who abuse them.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Source

A drunk, a grave, and a prayer

Go here for one of the best web posts I have read in a while. Please leave comments there.

Elder Cleopa on prayer