Creighton University's Online Ministries
Feast of the Epiphany - January 5, 2020
Daily Prayer
"Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall declare your praise."
Entrance Antiphon:
The Lord and ruler is coming;
kingship is his, and government and power.Collect:
O God, who on this day
revealed your Only Begotten Son to the nations
by the guidance of a star,
grant in your mercy
that we, who know you already by faith
may be brought to behold
the beauty of your sublime glory.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.Today's Readings - Lectionary # 20
The Epiphany Proclamation for 2019
Daily Meditation:
Your light has come, the glory of the Lord shines upon you. Isaiah 60May the kings of Tarshish and the islands bring tribute, the kings of Arabia and Seba offer gifts.
May all kings bow before him, all nations serve him.
For he rescues the poor when they cry out, the oppressed who have no one to help.
He shows pity to the needy and the poor and saves the lives of the poor. Psalm 72The Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
Ephesians 3This great feast - celebrated in the East as the Baptism of the Lord - is a feast of "revelation."
Jesus is the beloved Son of God,
a light for the whole world,
the very one who comes to us in time, this year,
to be our savior:
to rescue the poor, to hear our cry,
to save us in our need, in our poverty.May we bring him the gifts of our faith and trust and hope.
May we recognize him as our savior
who gave his own life to set us free from the power of sin and death.
Come, let us adore him.Intercessions:
Today our Savior was adored by the Magi.
Let us also worship him with joy as we pray
Light from Light, shine on us this day.
Christ, you revealed yourself in the flesh,
- sanctify us through prayer and the word of God.Christ, your witness was the Spirit,
- free our lives from the spirit of doubt.Christ, you revealed yourself to the angels,
- help us to feel the joy of heaven on earth.Christ, you were proclaimed to the nations,
- by the power of the Holy Spirit open the hearts of all.Christ, you generated faith in the world,
- renew the faith of all believers.Christ, you were taken up in glory,
-enkindle in us a longing for your kingdom.
Closing Prayer:
Light of the world,
You have come into my life; you are here for me in my poverty.
I am dazzled by the gifts you bring to me on this day:
"Your light is strong, your love is near."
Truly you have drawn me far beyond the limits of the world,
and into the limit-less boundaries of your dizzying love.
My gifts are small, and often filled with fear.
They are my trust and my hope.
Please accept them and heal me
and let me be free enough to rejoice
that you are the Beloved Son
and that you have come for me.May the Lord bless us,
protect us from all evil
and bring us to everlasting life.
Amen.
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Monday After Epiphany - January 6
Daily Prayer
Collect:
O God, whose eternal Word adorns the face of the heavens
yet accepted from the Virgin Mary the frailty of our flesh,
grant, we pray,
that he who appeared among us as the splendor of truth
may go forth in the fullness of power
for the redemption of the world.
Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.Today's Readings - Lectionary # 212
Daily Meditation:
This is how you can know the Spirit of God:
every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh belongs to God,
and every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus. 1 John 3"The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light,
on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death light has arisen." Mt. 4Jesus hears that John has been jailed.
He realizes his time has come.
He begins by quoting Isaiah, chapter 8.
He is the light who has come into our lives,
which are so often overshadowed by death, in so many ways.In this week after Epiphany, let us keep letting the Light
shine into the places of darkness within us and around us.
And where we have seen and felt his enlightening, freeing presence,
let us continue to rejoice with Christmas joy.Intercessions:
All the ends of the earth have seen Jesus Christ,
the saving power of God.
Let us praise him and cry out in joy:
Glory be to you, Lord Jesus Christ.Redeemer of all, you came to tear down the walls separating Jew from Gentile
- root out the prejudices which erode the depths of our humanity.Through your incarnation and your birth you established your presence among us,
- teach us to recognize the many forms of your presence in the Church and in one another.You are the fullest revelation of God to men and women,
- show us how we can assent to your word with integrity of faith and action.You are God-with-us, wondrously transforming all creation,
- let every heart, every voice, every deed throughout the universe now be transformed.
Closing Prayer:
Radiance.
Your radiant light blazes in my world today.
I know I will have difficult times
and the darkness will gather around me again.
But today the shining light of your love
comes into my life and frees me.There are other days that are shadowy,
when I don't always know where I am going, Lord.
When the gloom gathers in my life, lead me through it.
I will reach out my hand in the darkness,
put aside my fears
and walk next to you, comforted by your presence
and the warmth of your unending love.May the Lord bless us,
protect us from all evil
and bring us to everlasting life.
Amen.
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Tuesday After Epiphany - January 8
Daily Prayer
"Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall declare your praise."Collect:
O God, whose Only Begotten Son
has appeared in our very flesh
grant, we pray, that we may be inwardly transformed
through him whom we recognize as outwardly like ourselves.
Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Today's Readings - Lectionary # 213
Daily Meditation:
In this is love: not that we have loved God,
but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins. 1 John 4O God, give your judgment to the king; your justice to the son of kings;
That he may govern your people with justice, your oppressed with right judgment, ...
That he may defend the oppressed among the people, save the poor and crush the oppressor. Psalm 72His heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd;
and he began to teach them many things. ...
They all ate and were satisfied. Mark 6Jesus is full of compassion for us in his unconditional love for us.
Even when it seems impossible, he still shows us the way
and nourishes us with his love.May we be grateful for his love for us these days.
May we be like him in our love for one another.Intercessions:
Let us rejoice in the compassion of Christ,
who came to free mankind from the slavery of corruption and
to give us the freedom of the sons of God.
Trusting in this divine compassion, we plead:
By your birth, deliver us from evil.Lord, you existed before the ages, yet you entered into a new life,
- renew us continually through the mystery of your birth.Without surrendering your divinity, you wondrously took on our humanity,
- grant that our lives may press on to a fuller participation in your divinity.You came to be a light to the nations, the teacher of holiness,
- let your words be a light along our way.Word of God made flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, you entered this world,
- live in our hearts always through faith.
Closing Prayer:
Jesus, you became one of us on this earth.
What I want now is to be more like you:
more compassionate and patient,
more guided by your Holy Spirit.'In this is love.' It is impossible to believe
in the kind of love you have for me.
If only I believed it - how different my life would be!
It seems impossible that you could love me as you do
and yet you are the very center of that impossible love.
Help me to be more grateful for all you have given me
so that my response might be one of generosity
to you and those you have placed in my life.May the Lord bless us,
protect us from all evil
and bring us to everlasting life.
Amen.
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Wednesday After Epiphany - January 9
Daily Prayer
"Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall declare your praise."
Collect:
O God, who bestow light on all the nations,
grant your peoples the gladness of lasting peace
and pour into our hearts that brilliant light
by which you purified the minds of our fathers in faith.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Today's Readings Lectionary # 214
Daily Meditation:
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. ...
There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear
because fear has to do with punishment,
and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love. 1 John 4"Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid!"
He got into the boat with them and the wind died down. They were (completely) astounded.
They had not understood the incident of the loaves. On the contrary, their hearts were hardened. Mark 6How often fear takes away our ability to love!
But, love drives out fear.
It appears that the key is to "understand the incident of the loaves."
If Jesus has power, then it is foolish for us to fear.
If we won't let Jesus have power in our lives,
then our hearts are still hardened.Let us surrender our hearts to the Lord,
that we might let him love us
and take away all our fears,
that we might love more courageously, more completely.Intercessions:
In the fullness of time, the eternal Word was begotten of the Father.
He is the child who is born for us, the son who is given to us.
To him we lift our voices in joy:
Praise be to you, Lord.Son of the living God, you existed before the world was made
and you came on earth to save all,
- enable us to be witnesses to your Gospel.Sun of Justice, whose brightness shone forth from the bosom of the Father
and flooded the entire world,
- be light for all who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.You became a little child and lay in a manger,
- renew in us the simplicity of little children.For our sake you became the living bread of eternal life,
- fill us with joy through the sacrament of your altar.Closing Prayer:
My love for you is so imperfect, Lord.
I know I am filled with fear
and yet I long to taste the depths of your love.Give me the joy of lasting peace
and fill my heart with so much love
that there is no more room for the worry and dread.
Open my eyes to those around me
and give me the courage to act in justice
to make their lives better
as you would do for me.May the Lord bless us,
protect us from all evil
and bring us to everlasting life.
Amen.
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Thursday After Epiphany - January 10
Daily Prayer
"Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall declare your praise."
Collect:
O God, who through your Son raised up your eternal light for all nations,
grant that your people may come to acknowledge
the full splendor of their Redeemer,
that, bathed ever more in his radiance,
they may reach everlasting glory.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.Today's Readings Lectionary # 215
Daily Meditation:
We love because he first loved us.
If anyone says, "I love God," but hates his brother, he is a liar;
for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 1 John 4"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord." Luke 4The mission of Jesus is so clear.
He has come to show us how to love;
how to love those who most in need of love.
Sometimes the poorest, neediest person,
is the person in my own house that I have the least patience with.
I can't say I love God and ignore the one I'm called to love.May we have the light, the grace, of this week,
all about love,
to love more and more,
starting out very close to home.Intercessions:
Rejoice in the wonderful works of the Lord
for he has given us hope through the birth of his Son.
Let us all cry out with great joy:
Glory to God in the highest.With the angels and patriarchs and prophets,
- we praise you, Lord.With Mary, the Virgin Mother of God,
- our whole being proclaims your greatness, Lord.With the apostles and evangelists,
- we give you thanks, Lord.With all the holy martyrs,
- we offer our bodies to you as consecrated victims.With all your holy witnesses in the Church,
- we dedicate our lives to you in deepest faith.
Closing Prayer:
You have given me the great gift of faith
that offers so much meaning in my life.
You call me to see with new eyes, those who are in my life
and ask me to love them as you love me.
Such a challenge, Lord!As you touched the eyes of the blind and let in the light,
touch my heart and help me to open it
to those who most annoy me,
those who are hardest for me to love.I know that I am only redeemed through you
and I beg you to fan the flame of hope in my life.May the Lord bless us,
protect us from all evil
and bring us to everlasting life.
Amen.
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Friday After
Epiphany - January 11
Daily Prayer
"Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall declare your praise."
Collect:
Grant, we ask, almighty God,
that the Nativity of the Savior of the world
made known by the guidance of a star,
may be revealed ever more fully to our minds.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Today's Readings Lectionary # 216
Daily Meditation:
God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 1 John 5"I do will it. Be made clean." Luke 5
"Lord, if you want to, you can make me clean."
That's our prayer, our desire.
We have life in Jesus, a life that has integrity and peace.Let us ask for what we need this week.
Whatever is keeping us from real joy, real integrity,
can be made clean and put into balance by him.
May he heal anything that hinders our ability to love freely.Intercessions:
Give honor and glory to Jesus Christ who comes
to create a new heart and a new spirit in all.
We call on him as we say:
By the power of your birth, make us new persons.You took on our life and offered us in return the mystery of God’s life,
- help us to recognize you in the mysteries of your word and your eucharist
which you entrusted to your Church.Founder of the human race, through the spotless Virgin
you became one of us,
- through her intercession, may we touch your divinity and be healed.Our Redeemer, you descended upon the earth as the rain
which fell upon the sheepskin of Gideon,
- now drench our lives in the living water that springs up to provide eternal life.As we celebrate the beginning of your life on this earth,
- let us imitate that perfect manhood which you revealed in your life among us.
Closing Prayer:
Oh God of Wonder,
even though I often feel like I am stumbling in the dark,
I know you are there to guide me
with the perfect light of your love.I know you can heal me and
I believe that you want to do just that.
I beg you now to look at me with your loving eyes
and 'make me clean.'
Let my life reflect the balance of my faith in you
and a love of those in my life.
Help me to love more freely. Help me to love as you do.May the Lord bless us,
protect us from all evil
and bring us to everlasting life.
Amen.
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Saturday After Epiphany - January 12
Daily Prayer
"Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall declare your praise."
Collect:
Almighty ever-living God,
who through your Only Begotten Son
have made us a new creation for yourself,
grant, we pray,
that by your grace we may be found in the likeness of him,
in whom our nature is united to you.
Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Today's Readings Lectionary # 217
Daily Meditation:
And we have this confidence in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
And if we know that he hears us in regard to whatever we ask,
we know that what we have asked him for is ours. 1 John 5He must increase; I must decrease. John 3
Confidence in Jesus is so freeing.
Until we have complete trust in Jesus,
we will always be tempted to be the center of attention,
and too absorbed with our needs and
too discouraged if our needs aren't being met.
When we have confidence in Jesus,
we can ask for anything that he desires in us,
and we will have it.
If we ask that I might grow smaller in my desires,
and the needs of others might grow in my attention,
then he will increase his place in our hearts,
and fill us with even greater love for others.May we know how much he loves us.
May he become the center of our lives.Intercessions:
Let us give glory to Christ, the image of God, as we call upon him in faith:
Christ, Son of God, hear us.Son of God, you showed us the Father’s love,
- reveal him to men and women through the love we show toward one another.You revealed yourself as Lord of life,
- now grant us the fullness of your life.Let our bodies be signs of your life,
- as we bear your dying in our flesh.Illuminate our hearts,
- with the brilliant knowledge of God’s light.
Closing Prayer:
You have said that we could ask for anything
and you would grant it.
Give me only the ability to trust you, Lord.My mind and heart are so often at war with each other
and I am used to a life in which my own needs come first.
But I long to live my life as you lived yours,
filled with the love of and compassion for others.Give me the great grace to be more humble
and to demand less in my life.
Let me see the needs of others
as more important than my own.Too often I am at the center of my life;
Help me to do the impossible:
to put you in that central place.May the Lord bless us,
protect us from all evil
and bring us to everlasting life.
Amen.
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Baptism of the Lord - January 13
Daily Prayer
"Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall declare your praise."
Collect:
Almighty ever-living God,
who, when Christ had been baptized in the River Jordan
and as the Holy Spirit descended upon him,
solemnly declared him your beloved Son,
grant that your children by adoption,
reborn of water and the Holy Spirit,
may always be well pleasing to you.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.Today's Readings Lectionary #21
Daily Meditation:
"Here is my servant whom I uphold,
my chosen one with whom I am pleased." Isaiah 42:1John answered them all, saying,
“One mightier than I is coming.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Luke 3:16Jesus comes down to the Jordan and,
in a profound gesture, enters our lives even more dramatically:
he humbles himself to be one with us in the waters of baptism.In this week after Epiphany, let us keep letting the Light
shine into the places of darkness within us and around us.
And where we have seen and felt his enlightening, freeing presence,
let us continue to rejoice with Christmas joy.Intercessions:
All the ends of the earth have seen Jesus Christ,
the saving power of God.
Let us praise him and cry out in joy:
Glory be to you, Lord Jesus Christ.Redeemer of all, you came to tear down the walls separating Jew from Gentile
- root out the prejudices which erode the depths of our humanity.Through your incarnation and your birth you established your presence among us,
- teach us to recognize the many forms of your presence in the Church and in one another.You are the fullest revelation of God to men and women,
- show us how we can assent to your word with integrity of faith and action.You are God-with-us, wondrously transforming all creation,
- let every heart, every voice, every deed throughout the universe now be transformed.
Closing Prayer:
Radiance.
Your radiant light blazes in my world today.
I know I will have difficult times
and the darkness will gather around me again.
But today the shining light of your love
comes into my life and frees me.There are other days that are shadowy,
when I don't always know where I am going, Lord.
When the gloom gathers in my life, lead me through it.
I will reach out my hand in the darkness,
put aside my fears
and walk next to you, comforted by your presence
and the warmth of your unending love.May the Lord bless us,
protect us from all evil
and bring us to everlasting life.
Amen.
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