Our Lord and Our God! In the Mystery of faith, touch our life with the truth of the first Easter. Help us to know we are never alone. Help us to know goodness is for ever greater than evil: that light overcomes darkness. Help us to know that your Spirit is deep with us. Help us to know that this is the time you have made and that, with all your people, we can truly rejoice in it.  AMEN

Loving and merciful God!

We find ourselves in the midst of the mystery of life and come before you full of unanswered questions, searching for meaning, seeking your presence in all that surrounds us.

We give thanks for the signs of your majesty in the ordinary experiences: for the sudden burst of colour breaking through the hard-wintered earth as, all around ,the crocus open their heads and dance in the breeze; for the gentle warmth of the sun as slowly the days lengthen. All of your creation bristles with potential as planets spin and the burning light of the furthest stars lets us believe that they clothe and surround us on earth.  May we harness a little of that energy that we might serve the coming of your kingdom in all that we do.  For we can give thanks and sing your praise in fine words and music, but truly following you in our every-day encounters? That is the hard part.

Though we may question whether our love for you is ever big enough, we carry on the Way you have called us, together, and trusting in the bigness of your love for us, shown through the life and death and on-going presence of your son, Jesus Christ.     AMEN

Come to us, Lord Jesus Christ:
Come to us as we search the scriptures,    seeking God’s  hidden purpose;
Come as we walk the lonely road, needing a    companion;
Come when life mystifies and perplexes us;
Come into our disappointments and unease;
Come at table, when we share our food and  hopes, and, coming, open our eyes to recognise you.   AMEN

           (words by Donald Hilton b.1932)

                                                                                                        God of the poor,
we long for your coming
and sometimes pass you by
amid the ordinariness of every day.

Interrupt our comfort and complacency
with your poverty and need;
surprise our feelings of guilt and unworthiness
with the generosity of your forgiveness and the unfailing warmth of your welcome –
your gifts to US
in Jesus Christ.  AMEN

Loving and mysterious God! How much we have to give thanks for.  Your immeasurable goodness has sustained the generations of pilgrims who have dared to follow you.  Wherever you lead, love and compassion are the ever-burning lamps behind which we stumble and dance, lighting unknown paths, and decorating the roads we believe we have seen before.  With you, every day is an adventure and all journeys are made possible. We praise and worship you O God!

Lord God, We give you thanks for this wondrous world which you have made: for the beauty of hills and valleys; for the joyful rivers of crystal-clear water; for our fellow creatures – the beasts of the field, fish and fowl; for the sun to warm us, the trees to shade and shelter us, the rain to refresh us, the winds which blow upon us like the breath of heaven.  We thank you for all these things that speak to us of your glory, your care and your kindness – this summer – and always!  AMEN

by E.E. Cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(I who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

This prayer comes from the late Rev. David Ogston, a much-missed Guest Preacher and cherished part of the Canonmills Family

Lord, have mercy upon us.
May God in His goodness turn our desert places
into gateways to new life,
opportunities for new obedience.
And may we turn us again to Himself,
cleaned and refreshed,
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.    AMEN.

The soles of your feet, O God, have touched the earth.  The back street, the forgotten place, the outbuilding, the simple space has been given new importance as the meeting place of earth and heaven.  Your light has shined into the darkest corners of human existence and, despite all that we do to shut you out, your radiance and your joy break into our lives.  As we have knelt in wonder around the makeshift cradle of your coming this Christmas, so, in this new year, may our songs now rise to magnify your light to others and our unsuspecting bodies be used as the means through which you continue the mighty work of saving the world for which Christ came.

                                                                                                      AMEN

Now is the time for watching and waiting.
Now is the time, wherever we are. When the world was dark and the city was quiet you came – you crept in beside us.

Do the same this Christmas, Lord, Do the same this Christmas… In our watching and our waiting… Come, Lord, Come.  In our hopes and in our fears… Come, Lord, Come… In the busyness of our lives and the still of the dark hours…  Come, Lord, Come and lead us ON!