Month: November 2019

Pray for others!

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I am a member of a group who pray daily for others. The list of people can grow quite long but I try not to miss praying. Prayers for others is call Intercessory Prayer. I find that it can take the focus away from my problems and help me to see all the many needs in the world. I don’t always know what the need is but know that God is aware. I often ask for Jesus to heal all ills and make his presence felt in their lives. Praying for others is a blessing for me.

pray for someone

 

1 Timothy 2:1
[ Instructions concerning Prayer ] First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone,

When we can’t pray

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There are times in our lives when we begin to think that God isn’t helping us….or that God isn’t even there. Those times are hard. From an early age I have felt that God was with me….most of the time. Sometimes when I am anxious and I can’t seem to “feel” God with me I am lost. I don’t know what to do. Is everything that I believed a lie? I am cast into a deep dark hole. I am in the “valley of the shadow of death.” I am not just anxious but afraid. My worst fears raise their ugly heads and take hold of me.

cant pray

When I am like that I can’t pray. I am so far down that prayer won’t come. I am lost. Then I remember that I have a community of faith who pray daily and that their prayers rise like smoke to God and God reaches down to me and helps me. I may not “feel” his presence since feelings ebb and flow but he is there. And somehow I am comforted.

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There are definitely times when we can’t pray for ourselves. That’s why we need others who will pray for us.

Remember

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Today was All Saints Sunday….celebrated on Sunday although the day was actually November 1st. All Saints is a day of remembrance. Remembrance of all the saints who have gone before both those with a capital “S” as well as a small “s.”

In the Episcopal Liturgy we use the words from the Bible where Jesus asked the disciples to take the bread and the wine in “remembrance of me.” The earlier term for the is from much further back: Anamnesis

From Ancient Greek ἀνάμνησις (anámnēsis, “remembrance”), “call to mind”).

anamnesis

  1. The ability to recall past events; recollection.
  2. (medicine) The medical history of a patient.
  3. (rhetoric) The mention of the past; quotation of exemplary authors from memory to establish one’s authority.

I have always felt that those who have gone before us are still with us. They are present in memories, in places that we visit, and other ways. I have been in churches where a strong sense of those who were there in the past is present.

souls

We take this moment to think about all those whose lives have shaped ours.