F orgive me, O Lord, O Lord, forgive me my sins, the sins of my youth, and my present sins, the sin that my parents cast upon me, original sin, and the sins that I cast upon my children, in an ill example; actual sins, sins which are manifest to all the world, and sins which I have so labored to hide from the world, as that now they are hid from mine own conscience, and mine own memory. Forgive me my crying sins, and my whispering...
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Loving Heavenly Father, I come again to worship you in the wonder of who you are. I confess my sins to you, dear Heavenly Father. Wash me clean in my Savior’s precious blood from all that offends you. I recognize with my person a fleshly nature that can be rebellious in your sight. I affirm that in my union with Christ in his death I am dead to the rule of the fleshly nature. I desire the new nature you have placed within me to be in...
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My daughter-in-law, Khouria Jocelyn Mathewes, has a good column today on repentance, as we head into Great Lent. She makes a point about accepting forgiveness for past sins (not the ones that continue in the present, but completed deeds in the past). She reminds us that we must accept forgiveness and move on, and not keep revisiting them and “beating yourself up.” I think that, when we continue to be distraught over a forgiven sin in...
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A novena is a nine-day period of private or public prayer to obtain special graces, to implore special favors, or to make special petitions. Novena is derived from the Latin, “novem,” meaning nine. As the definition suggests, the novena has always had more of a sense of urgency and neediness. Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, I ask for the willingness to forgive and the grace to...
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A Prayer in a Time of Anger and Separation Lord, you who expressed your divine anger in fire, brimstone, and lightning, look down with understanding upon my anger. I am in pain — a wound in my heart caused by another is the source of this suffering. That heart of mine, Lord of Hearts, is filled with anger so that I am unable to be loving and caring. I feel a need to return injury for injury, pain for pain, and so cannot truly...
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Come Close, Lord, and hear my prayer as I come with great hesitation seeking reconciliation with you, my God. I find that my lips will hardly form these words, and yet, if I am honest, I know that at times there has been hidden in my heart a resentment toward you, my God. The reason, Lord, is that from the start you have shaped my world, formed my body, gifted my mind, and placed me within my family. I have held you responsible...
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Lord, I confess that you are good, and that to you all gentleness and love belong. And when there comes upon me the great pain of my heart and head, it is to you that I must look, and the look must be one of love, not reproach. If any should be reproachful it is you, who have stretched out your hands all the day and I would not. O Lord, my God, I stand upright when I should bow and kneel: how else can I learn but through the...
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Omnipotent and everlasting God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who by thy eternal providence disposest kingdoms as seemeth best to thy wisdom: We acknowledge and confess thy judgments to be righteous, in that thou hast taken from us, for our ingratitude, and for the abusing of thy most holy Word, our native king and Earthly comforter. Justly mayest thou pour forth upon us the uttermost of thy plagues, for we have not known the days...
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Father, why is the thing I need the most, the thing I do the least? Why am I so busy I do not have time? You must have many frustrated days when your eyes roam to and fro throughout the Earth in search of someone whose heart is completely yours. You must weep often when you seek for a man or woman to stand in the gap to fill the breech and find no one. Your heart must ache at times for me, one of your people, to rise up and be...
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