New Life in Everyday Kindness

O GOD, Thou hast found us, and not we Thee. At times we but dimly discern Thee; the dismal mists of earth obscure Thy glory. Yet in other and more blessed moments, Thou dost rise upon our souls, and we know Thee as the Light of all our seeing, the Life of all that is not dead within us, the Bringer of health and cure, the Revealer of peace and truth. We will not doubt our better moments, for in them Thou dost speak to us. We rejoice that Thou hast created us in Thine image. Thy Love has stirred us into being, has endowed us with spiritual substance. In the intellect, whose thoughts wander through eternity; in the conscience that bears witness to Thy eternal righteousness; in the affections that make life sweet, and reach forth to Thee, O Lover of Mankind — in these, we are made heirs to the riches of Thy grace. And when we wandered from Thee into the far country, and there wasted our substance, Thou didst not forsake us. Thy love followed after us and would not let us go, and compelled us to return. We praise Thee that in the advent of Thy dear Son, all that Thou art has become visible to faith. His passion has become our deliverance, His wounds our healing, His Cross our redemption, His death our life. Make us one with Him in faith and penitence, that as He died, so we may die unto sin, that as He rose again triumphant over wrong and shame and despair, so we may rise with Him into newness of life.

Our Father be with us, we pray Thee, not only in the great moments of experience, but also in the trivial round, the common task. Make us children of quietness and heirs of peace. Grant that we may go among our fellows with cheerful, kindly faces, ever lenient to their faults, ever glad to praise their virtues. Help us to control our tempers, and to be kindly affectioned one towards another. Wherever we see need or distress, may we be ready to help, counting it our joy to bear another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. Save us from all selfish pleasure and slothful ease and idle curiosity. Keep us ever mindful of the fewness of our days, and the greatness of Thy work. As our day is, so let our strength be. And let Thy favour be upon us; establish Thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands, establish Thou it, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.