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Community Universalist Church

Daily Office

Morning · Tuesday, 2 March 2027 · Ordinary Time

We hear God’s CALL TO WORSHIP in Psalm 100, known as the Jubilate Deo

Be joyful in the Lord, all you lands;
serve the Lord with gladness
and come before his presence with a song.

Know this: The Lord himself is God;
he himself has made us, and we are his;
we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving;
go into his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and call upon his Name.

For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting;
and his faithfulness endures from age to age.

We listen in silence for God’s still small voice, CENTERING ourselves, becoming aware of God’s presence within us and around us

We respond to God with ADORATION using the words of Richard Baxter

We praise and glorify you our Lord and owner, for we and all things are your own. We praise and glorify you our king and ruler, for we are your subjects, and our perfect obedience is your due. Just are all your laws and judgment; true and sure is all your Word. We praise and glorify you, our great benefactor. In you we live, and move, and are: all that we are, or have, or can do, is wholly from you, the cause of all; and all is for you, for you are our end. Delightfully to love you is our greatest duty, and our only felicity, for you are love itself, and infinitely amiable. Amen.

We hear God’s CALL TO REPENTANCE in Romans 8:38–39 and Joel 2:13

I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from God’s love, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rend your hearts and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God; for he indeed is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and plenteous in love, and relents of the evil.

We respond with CONFESSION using the words of John Hunter

Almighty God, Spirit of purity and grace, whose salvation is never far from the contrite heart, listen to our confessions of sin, and have mercy upon us.

For our many refusals of your call;
for all our forgotten vows;
for the better purposes which we have suffered to grow weak;
for the excuses we have fashioned to hide from ourselves our unfaithful lives;
for the vindictive passions we have cherished;
for our readiness to blame, and our want of thoughtfulness, patience, kindness, and sympathy;
for all the goodness of life which we have received thanklessly;
for the strength which we have wasted;
for the opportunities which we have neglected;
for all the beauty of this fair world and the love of human hearts which have passed before us and which in our thoughtlessness and care and passion we have not appreciated;
for our selfish comfort amid the wrongs, oppressions, and sorrows of life;
for the counsels of your Word which have spoken to us vainly;
for the grace and truth of your beloved Son which we have slighted;
for the pleadings of your Spirit to which we have not listened;

have mercy upon us, O God.

Amen.

We hear God’s teaching for our lives in THE READING OF THE LAW in Deuteronomy 6:4–9

Hear, Israel:
   The Lord is our God,
   the Lord is one,
and you shall love the Lord your God
    with all your heart,
    and with all your soul,
    and with all your might.

These words, which I command you this day, shall be on your heart;
    and you shall teach them diligently to your children,
    and shall talk of them when you sit in your house,
    and when you walk by the way,
    and when you lie down,
    and when you rise up.

You shall bind them for a sign on your hand,
    and they shall be for symbols between your eyes.
You shall write them on the door-posts of your house,
    and on your gates.

We PRAISE God in the INVITATORY PSALM, the VenitePsalm 95:1–7 · Venite, exultemus

1O come, let us sing to the Lord; *
let us heartily rejoice in the strength of our salvation.

2Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, *
and show ourselves glad in him with psalms.

3For the Lord is a great God, *
and a great King above all gods.

4In his hand are all the corners of the earth, *
and the strength of the hills is his also.

5The sea is his, and he made it; *
and his hands prepared the dry land.

6O come, let us worship and bow down, *
and kneel before the Lord our Maker.

7For he is the Lord our God, *
and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.

Gloria Patri

Glory be to the Father
    and to the Son
    and to the Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning,
    is now and ever shall be,
    world without end.
Amen.

We PRAISE God in THE PSALM OF THE DAYPsalm 68:4–10 · Exsurgat Deus

4Sing to God, sing praises to his Name; exalt him who rides upon the heavens; *
Yahweh is his Name, rejoice before him!

5Father of orphans, defender of widows, *
God in his holy habitation!

6God gives the solitary a home and brings forth prisoners into freedom; *
but the rebels shall live in dry places.

7O God, when you went forth before your people, *
when you marched through the wilderness,

8The earth shook, and the skies poured down rain, at the presence of God, the God of Sinai, *
at the presence of God, the God of Israel.

9You sent a gracious rain, O God, upon your inheritance; *
you refreshed the land when it was weary.

10Your people found their home in it; *
in your goodness, O God, you have made provision for the poor.

We pray a PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION in the words of Thomas Cranmer in the Book of Common Prayer (1549)

Blessed Lord, you have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning — grant us that we may in such a way hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them; that by patience and comfort of your holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

We hear God speaking to us in THE READING for the dayDeuteronomy 10:12–22

Tuesday, 2 March 2027 · Ordinary Time

12Now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13to keep the LORD’s commandments and statutes, which I command you today for your good? 14Behold, to the LORD your God belongs heaven, the heaven of heavens, and the earth, with all that is therein. 15Only the LORD had a delight in your fathers to love them, and he chose their offspring after them, even you above all peoples, as it is today. 16Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked. 17For the LORD your God, he is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty, and the awesome, who doesn’t respect persons or take bribes. 18He executes justice for the fatherless and widow and loves the foreigner in giving him food and clothing. 19Therefore love the foreigner, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. 20You shall fear the LORD your God. You shall serve him. You shall cling to him, and you shall swear by his name. 21He is your praise, and he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen. 22Your fathers went down into Egypt with seventy persons; and now the LORD your God has made you as the stars of the sky for multitude.

World English Bible. Or read it at Bible Gateway in the NRSV: Deuteronomy 10:12–22 · the short form, Deuteronomy 10:12–16.

We REFLECT in silence

We greet the day with THE SONG OF ZECHARIAH, the Benedictus Luke 1:68–79

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel;
    he has come to his people and set them free.
He has raised up for us a mighty savior,
    born of the house of his servant David.
Through his holy prophets he promised of old,
that he would save us from our enemies,
    from the hands of all who hate us.
He promised to show mercy to our fathers
    and to remember his holy covenant.
This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham,
    to set us free from the hands of our enemies,
Free to worship him without fear,
    holy and righteous in his sight
    all the days of our life.

You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High,
    for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,
To give his people knowledge of salvation
    by the forgiveness of their sins.
In the tender compassion of our God
    the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,
    and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

We pray the LORD’S PRAYER as Jesus taught his disciples, in those words which are most meaningful to us

Our [ Father / Mother / Creator ] in heaven,
Hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done on earth
as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our [ trespasses / sins ]
as we forgive those who [ trespass / sin ] against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.

We pray a PRAYER OF INTERCESSION in the words of Zacharias Ursinus, Heidelberg Catechism

Almighty God, heavenly Father, grant us first rightly to know you, and to sanctify, glorify and praise you in all your works, in which your power, wisdom, goodness, justice, mercy and truth are clearly displayed; and further, that we may so order and direct our whole lives, our thoughts, words and actions, that your name may never be blasphemed, but rather honored and praised on our account. Amen.

We silently pray PERSONAL PRAYER

Followed by

Amen.

We pray a PRAYER FOR UNITY OF ALL PEOPLE

God, you have made of one blood all nations of the earth, and your will is that all your children should be gathered into one family of love: break down, we pray you, the walls that divide us; deliver us from hardness of heart and from contempt for those who differ from us; and hasten the time when all shall dwell together in that peace which passes understanding, knowing you as Father and one another as brothers and sisters; through Jesus Christ our Lord, in whom there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but all are one. Amen.

We pray a PRAYER OF GENERAL THANKSGIVING in the words of Hugh Cameron

For the life which you have given and preserved,
the world in which we dwell,
and the hope of everlasting blessedness,
we thank you, O God.

For the pains and distresses which have moulded us as clay is moulded by the potter,
and for the consolations which so often like springs in the desert have refreshed our weariness,
we thank you, O God.

For comfort and help in sorrow,
in pain,
in bereavement,
and when flesh and heart failed,
we thank you, O God.

For the warnings of your spirit speaking to our spirits when the sky was bright and all people spoke well of us,
we thank you, O God.

For the life and doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ,
for his love and sacrifice,
for his boundless compassion,
and for the glorious company of those who have followed him in weakness unto victory,
we thank you, O God.

A concluding BENEDICTION or blessing Numbers 6:24–26

The Lord bless us and keep us;
the Lord make his face to shine upon us,
and be gracious to us;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon us,
and give us peace.

Amen.