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The Anglican Fellowship of Prayer is a lay ministry, aided by members of the ordained clergy, which serves the church and the world by encouraging, facilitating, and promoting the use, understanding, and discipline of prayer.
AN EASTER MESSAGE FROM THE AFP PRESIDENT
Rev. Dr. John Throop
President, AFP Executive Council
A PRAYER FOR THE UKRAINIAN PEOPLE
O God, almighty in power and author of peace, we fervently pray for the welfare of the Ukrainian people suffering in the midst of war. Let your unfailing mercy uphold and defend innocent men, women, and children whose homes and livelihoods are under attack. By your providence, frustrate the designs of evil tyrants. Give the leaders of this world, especially the president of the United States, courage, and wisdom to discern clear and fruitful steps to bring this conflict to a rapid end. Set a hedge of protection around this and every nation against any and all cyberattacks and economic damage. Make us all instruments of your peace in our time and in this crisis; through Jesus Christ, who is the source of peace that passes all understanding through the gracious work of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
A SHORT COURSE IN SUFFERING
By Bishop Daniel Martins
Susanne, my late mother-in-law, was a devout believer. Raised in a strict Anabaptist faith community, she left that tradition as a young adult over what she thought was an excessive legalism, joyfully embracing a more mainstream evangelicalism, in which she professed an experience of the freedom inherent in the gospel. Susanne lived 98 years. In middle age, she endured a bitterly painful divorce. In time, she remarried happily, but in her mid-70s, her husband developed Alzheimer’s, to which he succumbed about five years later. Around the same time, her osteoporosis flared up and affected her for the rest of her life, presenting substantial pain-management challenges...
Note: This article first appeared in The Living Church and is used by permission
INTERCESSORY PRAYER
Intercessory Prayer from The Rt Revd Daniel Hayden Martins, DD of the Diocese of Springfield (TEC).
Click Here: Prayers for COVID-19
From the President of the AFP Executive Council…
As we hear medical experts and elected officials talk about the time when we are past the current COVID-19 crisis, they agree on one thing above all: nothing is going to go “back to normal. We can’t live life as we did. To help prevent the spread of the virus, we may not gather in large groups very easily. (For those who are active in the worship of the church, we may not worship together as we always have done.) Indeed, as the experts say, we will be entering a “new normal” with behaviors and situations that will require adjustment to new requirements. We’ll long for the good old days.
Yet many of us have had to face the “new normal” in our own lives. I remember when I went through surgery some years ago. Before the surgery, I had sight in both eyes and functioned just as a fully-sighted person does—driving, reading, using tools, and recognizing people even from distance. I came out of the surgery with low-vision impairment. I quickly discovered that I was in a “new normal”, unable to do many things without some kind of assistance. If you have had life-changing surgery, or a divorce, or a weather event that has destroyed what you knew, then you, too, know that there is a “new normal.”
When we start talking about a “new normal”, however, anxiety sets in. We are moving into a way of life we have not lived. We are unfamiliar with new behaviors, schedules, and relationships. Over the years, I have found that people who struggle with faith get mad at God—a God of their own understanding. They feel as if God has abandoned them, or wonder if God ever had been with them. They hold fast to a belief that God never changes (which is true), and that means that life should not change either. Now, in their view, God is no longer in control. The truth, however, is that they are out of control, and their lives are out of control.
Even faithful people have spiritual struggles in the “new normal”. And that’s exactly what the disciples of Jesus, crucified and laid in a tomb, struggled to understand. As of Good Friday, and the Great Sabbath the next day, they faced life without Jesus. The next morning, everything changed again.
In the normal that they knew, the women came to the tomb to anoint Jesus for a proper burial. In that moment, they encountered men in dazzling clothes telling them, “Christ is risen!” And the women were terrified—because none of this was normal.
These women, and then the disciples in a locked room met the Risen Christ. Now they found themselves in a spiritual way dealing with “the new normal”. And that was glorious! Even as Jesus, during his earthly ministry, spoke of his resurrection, the disciples remained in the spiritual “normal” of their time. They lived in the power of sin and death. They had to fulfill the Law and fulfill the appointed sacrifices. On the Cross, Jesus overcame the power of sin. In his resurrection, he defeated the power of death. Ultimately, the power of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost made the new normal the way we live and love as Christians.
Easter can shape our prayer at this urgent moment to help us, and those around us, to be ready for the new normal as the world re-opens, whenever and however that will be. As we pray for those who suffer from the COVID-19 virus, for those who love and care for them, for our health care professionals and first responders, and for those suffering economic distress, we have an opportunity to pray for God’s grace to be released in this time of anxiety, need and weariness. We can bring five matters before God as the new normal unfold:
- For healing of all who suffer from COVID-19, and compassion for all who care for he suffering;
- For wisdom that God’s power will be present in the medical researches developing a future vaccine and other treatments to combat this virus, and for adequate testing kits and people who can administer them.
- For hope among those who are dealing with economic hardship due to lost jobs and closed businesses, and provision for food banks, counseling centers and local governments assisting those in need.
- For unity among all who govern us, and humility as elected officials move us into the new normal; and,
- For steadfast courage for laity, bishops, priests, and deacons to preach the Gospel to all in this time of spiritual need, and for strength for congregations and their leaders to build up one another and to pray through this time of the Church Scattered.
Blessings,
--The Rev. Dr. John R. Throop