Mtr Taylor Devine

Dear Friend,

The Antiphon for today's prayers evokes Jesus' name as "Morning Star," or "Dayspring." This prayer has been said on this day for generations by Monastic communities and in daily individual and Parish prayers.

O Morning Star, splendor of light eternal and sun of righteousness:
Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

This prayer, prayed along with the canticles and responses set for the day will lead you to the final Collects for Morning Prayer (p. 56 or 99 in the Book of Common Prayer.) On a Friday such as this you might include a Collect for Fridays, written below.

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.

This Collect draws on the story of Good Friday, so we have in tension the birth and death of Jesus. We as followers of the Way, knowing the end of the story, have to hold both, and learn from his life and the revelation after his life to the gathered community, in order to make sense of this Way of Love. The incarnation of God in Christ, and the death of God in Christ, and the resurrection of God in Christ, are all present to us in one daily prayer. In this view of Jesus' life, the life, death and resurrection into which we are baptized, we look for how Jesus continues to dawn in our lives. Do you see a place where God's light is showing the truth, making a way, or upending our understanding?

In Christ,
Taylor+

Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the Dayspring from on high hath visited us, To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
-Luke 1:76-79