LORD, we go to our daily work; help us to take pleasure therein. Show us clearly what our duty is; help us to be faithful in doing it. Let all we do be well done, fit for Thine eye to see. Give us strength to do, patience to bear; let our courage never fail. When we cannot love our work, let us think of it as Thy task; and, by our true love to Thee, make unlovely things shine in the light of Thy great love - Amen.
GRANT unto us, Almighty God, Thy peace that passeth understanding; that we, amid the storms and troubles of this our life, may rest in Thee, knowing that all things are in Thee, under Thy care, governed by Thy will, guarded by Thy love; so that with a quiet heart we may see the storms of life, the cloud and the thick darkness; ever rejoicing to know that the darkness and the light are both alike to Thee. Guide, guard, and govern us even to the end, that none of us may fail to lay hold upon the immortal life - Amen.
O LORD of life, and Lord of love! love us into life, and give us life to love Thee. Grant us life enough to put life into all things, that when we travel o'er this part of our life, and it seems but dust and barrenness, we may be of those who hope in Thee. Touch this barrenness, till all things bloom. Touch those of us whose life is barrener than it need be -- lacking knowledge and beauty, filled with petty interest and foolish cares. Lord, forgive us that our life is so poor, and grant us the thoughts of God, that we may be enabled for the time to come to make this very desert blossom as the rose. Grant that in us, short-lived, vexed with cares, hungry, thirsty, dying, the Spirit of God may so come and so dwell, that the beauty of the Lord may be upon us, and the work of our hands be established: through Jesus Christ (G-d, Krishna, the Holy Spirit, the Goddess, Buddha, Allah) our Lord - Amen.
GRANT unto us, Almighty God, that, when our vision fails, and our understanding is darkened; when the ways of life seem hard, and the brightness of life is gone, -- to us grant the wisdom that deepens faith when the sight is dim, and enlarges trust when the understanding is not clear. And whensoever Thy ways in nature or in the soul are hard to be understood, then may our quiet confidence, our patient trust, our loving faith in Thee be great, and as children knowing that they are loved, cared for, guarded, kept, may we with a quiet mind at all times put our trust in the unseen God. So may we face life without fear, and death without fainting; and, whatsoever may be in the life to come, give us confident hope that whatsoever is best for us both here and hereafter is Thy good pleasure, and will be Thy law - Amen.
ALMIGHTY God, comfort us by Thy fullness. Our strength is but weakness, our knowledge is but small, our life but passing away. By Thine eternal wisdom, by Thine unshaken power, Thy constant years, Thine unfailing love, uphold and comfort us, that we, ever feeling that our little lives are altogether in Thee, may look forward to the ending of this mortal life without fear, longing for and hoping for an entrance into that large abundant life where Thou shalt be all in all - Amen.
WE give Thee thanks, Almighty God, for the bread of the body that perisheth, and we beseech Thee to give us that bread by which man's higher life is fed, that we, laying hold of the life that never dies, may thereby be fitted for the troubles and burdens of this life, and look forward with joy to the higher and better life. So may we live, in constant childlike trust in Thee, as to believe, though we behold it not, that the end of all things is divine, and to catch the music to which this world is set by Thee. Lead Thou us from the lower life to the better life, that little things may lose their power to vex us, and, in the midst of the troubles of this life, we may have the peace of God that passeth all understanding. Of Thy loving-kindness and tender mercy hear us, through Jesus Christ our Lord - Amen.
GRANT unto us, Almighty God, by Thy good Spirit, that we, feeling towards Thee as children, and filled full of trust, and hope, and faith, may remain so fixed, that, in the dark, we may trust where we cannot see, and hope where all seems doubtful, ever looking onto Thee as our Father that doeth all things well, our Father that ordereth all. Thus may we, knowing that all things are in Thy hands, abide Thy time, patiently doing the work Thou hast given us to do - Amen.
ALMIGHTY God, Lord of all saints and of all souls, look upon us, and so guide and govern us by Thy Spirit that we may come at last to take part with that great host, who, looking back upon the way in which they have been led, praise and magnify Thy holy name - Amen.
GRANT unto us, Almighty God, in all time of sore distress, the comfort of the forgiveness of our sins. In time of darkness give us blessed hope. In time of sickness of body give us quiet courage; and when the heart is bowed down, and the soul is very heavy, and life is a burden, and pleasure a weariness, and the sun is too bright, and life too mirthful, then may that Spirit, the Spirit of the Comforter, come upon us, and after our darkness may there be the clear shining of the heavenly light; that so, being uplifted again by Thy mercy, we may pass on through this our mortal life with quiet courage, patient hope, and unshaken trust, hoping through Thy loving-kindness and tender mercy to be delivered from death into the large life of the eternal years.
ALMIGHTY God, by whose word all things work, by whose guidance all things go, so order our inward life, that we may be enabled to understand the things that we see; and by Thy guidance in the spiritual life and in charity, so order what there is disordered in our lives, so bring our minds to the truth, our consciences to the law, our eyes to the light, and our hearts to Thy true love, that, amidst the seeming discords of life, we may hear the music of the heavenly will, and catch ofttimes the charms of the heavenly order. So give us hope that we may pass on through time, into the higher and better education of the eternal life to come, and that at last we may know those things that are hidden, and which now we cannot know, and learn the glorious beauty and the glorious loving of the eternal years - Amen.
GRANT unto us, Almighty God, that we, communing with one another and with Thee, may feel our hearts burn within us, until all pure, and just, and holy, and noble things of God and man may be to us lovely, and we may find nothing to fear but that which is hateful in Thine eyes, and nothing worth seeking but that which is lovely and fair therein.
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