All Hallows Evening Prayer for Saturday Evening (September 10, 2022)
PROCLAMATION OF THE LIGHT
One or more candles may be lit.
I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents Luke 15: 10
EVENING HYMN
Open this link in a new tab to hear the translation of the Phos hilaron, “O Gracious Light,” from The Book of Common Prayer (1979).
1. O gracious Light,
pure brightness of the
everliving Father in heaven.
O Jesus, Christ, holy and blessed!
2. Now as we come to the setting of the sun,
and our eyes behold the vesper light,
we sing your praises, O God:
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
3. you are worthy at all times
to be praised by happy voices,
O Son of God, O Giver of life,
and to be glorified through all the worlds.
PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
Blessed are you, O Lord our God, ruler of the universe!
Your word brings on the dusk of evening,
your wisdom creates both night and day.
You determine the cycles of time,
arrange the succession of seasons,
and establish the stars in their heavenly courses.
Lord of the starry hosts is your name.
Living and eternal God, rule over us always.
Blessed be the Lord, whose word makes evening fall. Amen.
PSALM
Psalm 141 Domine, clamavi
O Lord, I call to you; come to me quickly;
hear my voice when I cry to you.
Let my prayer rise before you as incense,
the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
Set a watch before my mouth, O Lord,
and guard the door of my lips;
Let not my heart incline to any evil thing;
let me not be occupied in wickedness with evildoers,
nor taste the pleasures of their table.
Let the righteous smite me in friendly rebuke;
but let not the oil of the unrighteous anoint my head;
for my prayer is continually against their wicked deeds.
Let their rulers be overthrown in stony places;
then they may know that my words are sweet.
As when a plough turns over the earth in furrows,
let their bones be scattered at the mouth of the Pit.
But my eyes are turned to you, Lord God;
in you I take refuge; do not leave me defenseless.
Protect me from the snare which they have laid for me
and from the traps of the evildoers.
Let the wicked fall into their own nets,
while I pass by in safety.
Silence
Lord God, our protector and guide,
who made us knowing both good and evil,
help us to desire all that is good,
that the offering of our lives may be acceptable to you;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
SCRIPTURE
1 Timothy 1: 1-2; 12-19a Paul expresses his gratitude for God’s mercy and gives instructions to Timothy
This letter is from Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, appointed by the command of God our Savior and Christ Jesus, who gives us hope.
I am writing to Timothy, my true son in the faith.
May God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord give you grace, mercy, and peace.
I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength to do his work. He considered me trustworthy and appointed me to serve him, even though I used to blaspheme the name of Christ. In my insolence, I persecuted his people. But God had mercy on me because I did it in ignorance and unbelief. Oh, how generous and gracious our Lord was! He filled me with the faith and love that come from Christ Jesus.
This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all. But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life. All honor and glory to God forever and ever! He is the eternal King, the unseen one who never dies; he alone is God. Amen.
Timothy, my son, here are my instructions for you, based on the prophetic words spoken about you earlier. May they help you fight well in the Lord’s battles. Cling to your faith in Christ, and keep your conscience clear. For some people have deliberately violated their consciences; as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked.
Silence
May your word live in us
and bear much fruit to your glory
HOMILY
In today’s reading, 1 Timothy 1: 1-2; 12-19a, we learn that Paul believed that his conversion was not only a demonstration of God’s mercy to him but to all humankind. He writes Timothy—
“…God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life.”
The Cambridge Dictionary defines mercy as kindness that makes you forgive someone, usually someone over whom you have authority. It further defines mercy as kindness shown to someone whom you have the right or power to punish. It defines kindness as the quality of being kind, that is, generous, helpful, thinking about other people’s feelings, and caring about them. When you forgive someone else, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, you stop blaming or being mad at them for something they have done, you do not punish them for something.
What Paul is saying is that God was kind to him and forgave him so others would become aware that God would also be kind to them and forgive them too. Through faith in Jesus, they would be put right with God.
The mercy that God shows us, the kindness and forgiveness that he shows us, are grace—his favor and goodwill toward us which we not for any reason deserve and which we cannot in any way earn.
This reading started me thinking about how effective we are as advertisements for God’s grace, not just through our words but also through our actions. Jesus himself was an embodiment of God’s mercifulness, God’s willingness to be kind to us and to forgive us. He represented these qualities of God’s character exactly.
O Lord, I call to you; come to me quickly;
hear my voice when I cry to you.
Let my prayer rise before you as incense,
the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
Set a watch before my mouth, O Lord,
and guard the door of my lips;
Let not my heart incline to any evil thing;
let me not be occupied in wickedness with evildoers,
nor taste the pleasures of their table.
Let the righteous smite me in friendly rebuke;
but let not the oil of the unrighteous anoint my head;
for my prayer is continually against their wicked deeds.
Let their rulers be overthrown in stony places;
then they may know that my words are sweet.
As when a plough turns over the earth in furrows,
let their bones be scattered at the mouth of the Pit.
But my eyes are turned to you, Lord God;
in you I take refuge; do not leave me defenseless.
Protect me from the snare which they have laid for me
and from the traps of the evildoers.
Let the wicked fall into their own nets,
while I pass by in safety.
Silence
Lord God, our protector and guide,
who made us knowing both good and evil,
help us to desire all that is good,
that the offering of our lives may be acceptable to you;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
SCRIPTURE
1 Timothy 1: 1-2; 12-19a Paul expresses his gratitude for God’s mercy and gives instructions to Timothy
This letter is from Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, appointed by the command of God our Savior and Christ Jesus, who gives us hope.
I am writing to Timothy, my true son in the faith.
May God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord give you grace, mercy, and peace.
I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength to do his work. He considered me trustworthy and appointed me to serve him, even though I used to blaspheme the name of Christ. In my insolence, I persecuted his people. But God had mercy on me because I did it in ignorance and unbelief. Oh, how generous and gracious our Lord was! He filled me with the faith and love that come from Christ Jesus.
This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all. But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life. All honor and glory to God forever and ever! He is the eternal King, the unseen one who never dies; he alone is God. Amen.
Timothy, my son, here are my instructions for you, based on the prophetic words spoken about you earlier. May they help you fight well in the Lord’s battles. Cling to your faith in Christ, and keep your conscience clear. For some people have deliberately violated their consciences; as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked.
Silence
May your word live in us
and bear much fruit to your glory
HOMILY
What Kind of Ad Are You?
In today’s reading, 1 Timothy 1: 1-2; 12-19a, we learn that Paul believed that his conversion was not only a demonstration of God’s mercy to him but to all humankind. He writes Timothy—
“…God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life.”
The Cambridge Dictionary defines mercy as kindness that makes you forgive someone, usually someone over whom you have authority. It further defines mercy as kindness shown to someone whom you have the right or power to punish. It defines kindness as the quality of being kind, that is, generous, helpful, thinking about other people’s feelings, and caring about them. When you forgive someone else, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, you stop blaming or being mad at them for something they have done, you do not punish them for something.
What Paul is saying is that God was kind to him and forgave him so others would become aware that God would also be kind to them and forgive them too. Through faith in Jesus, they would be put right with God.
The mercy that God shows us, the kindness and forgiveness that he shows us, are grace—his favor and goodwill toward us which we not for any reason deserve and which we cannot in any way earn.
This reading started me thinking about how effective we are as advertisements for God’s grace, not just through our words but also through our actions. Jesus himself was an embodiment of God’s mercifulness, God’s willingness to be kind to us and to forgive us. He represented these qualities of God’s character exactly.
Both Jesus and Paul teach that followers of Jesus should imitate God. They should imitate his mercifulness, his kindness and his forgiveness.
In the Sermon on the Plain in Luke’s Gospel Jesus instructs his disciples and the crowd—
“If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them! And if you do good only to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that, And if you lend only to those from whom you hope to get your money back, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners and expect to get their money back. No, you are to love your enemies and do good and lend without hope of return. Your reward will be wonderful and you will be sons of the most high. For he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked!
“You must be merciful, as your father in Heaven is merciful” (Luke 6:32-36 Phillips)
Paul writes the church at Ephesus—
“Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God” (Ephesians 5: 1-2).
If we are to be true witnesses to Jesus and to represent him well in the world, we need to embody the qualities of God’s character that he taught that we should emulate. This was Paul’s understanding of what Jesus taught, and if we are to be faithful disciples of Jesus, it must become our understanding too, not just something that we grasp intellectually but something that we have internalized along with these qualities.
Regrettably we often fall short in this regard due to several negative traits that every human being possesses. One of them is our proclivity to be judgmental. We are quick to find fault with others, indeed, to look for the worst in them. We quickly form negative opinions of them, based upon scant information and hastily made assumptions.
We let our opinions and feelings influence our judgment in a negative way. Rather than believe something good about someone, we choose to believe something bad about them when we have the possibility of doing either. We are inclined to give more credence to the bad things that we hear about people, even though they are gossip, rather than the good things that we hear about them.
We think about the worst possible things that could possibly happen in a situation, or we consider a situation as much worse or much more serious than it really is. When details are missing, we invent them.
We do not consider all the possibilities but fixate on one possibility and are unable to move away from it. We may as a consequence say or do inappropriate things that prove not only harmful to someone else but also to ourselves.
If we are to be true witnesses to Jesus and to represent him well in the world, we must learn to recognize these negative traits in ourselves and to keep a tight rein on them. Otherwise, they will become a serious hindrance to us embodying the qualities of God’s character that set a genuine follower of Jesus apart from other people. A lack of these qualities in ourselves will throw into doubt any claim that we make about God’s character, about his mercifulness, his willingness to treat humanity with kindness and care and to show us forgiveness. People will not believe what we say if they do not see any evidence of what we are saying in us.
We are the best advertisement for God’s grace when we show its good effects on us. We are the worst advertisement for his grace when we put our own negative characteristics on display. A good question that we can ask ourselves every day is, "What do I need to do better to be a good ad for God and for Jesus today?" and then go ahead and do what we have decided we need to do.
Silence
AFFIRMATION OF FAITH
Let us affirm our faith in the words of the Apostles Creed.
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth;
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead;
He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.
SONG OF PRAISE
Open this link in a new tab to hear Olando Gibbons’ setting of the Magnificat, "My Soul Doth Magnify the Lord."
My soul doth magnify the Lord, *
and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.
For he hath regarded *
the lowliness of his handmaiden.
For behold from henceforth *
all generations shall call me blessed.
For he that is mighty hath magnified me, *
and holy is his Name.
And his mercy is on them that fear him *
throughout all generations.
He hath showed strength with his arm; *
he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat, *
and hath exalted the humble and meek.
He hath filled the hungry with good things, *
and the rich he hath sent empty away.
He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel, *
as he promised to our forefathers,
Abraham and his seed for ever.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost: *
as it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be for ever. Amen.
PRAYERS
The Lord be with you.
The Lord bless you.
As our Savior taught his disciples,
we pray:
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory
for ever and ever.
Amen.
That this evening may be holy, good, and peaceful,
We entreat you, O Lord.
That your holy angels may lead us in paths of peace and
goodwill,
We entreat you, O Lord.
That we may be pardoned and forgiven for our sins
and offenses,
We entreat you, O Lord.
That there may be peace to your Church and to the whole
world,
We entreat you, O Lord.
That we may depart this life in your faith and fear,
and not be condemned before the great judgment seat
of Christ,
We entreat you, O Lord.
That we may be bound together by your Holy Spirit in
the communion of [________ and] all your saints,
entrusting one another and all our life to Christ,
We entreat you, O Lord.
Almighty and merciful God, by whose grace alone
your people offer you true and worthy service:
Grant that we may so faithfully serve you in this life
that we do not fail to obtain your heavenly promises
in the life to come; through the merits of Jesus Christ
our Lord. Amen.
In silent or spontaneous prayer all bring before God the concerns of the day.
Make known, O Lord, your loving kindness to the whole human race. Enlighten all the peoples of the earth with your truth and gather them into your flock. Be gracious to your Church, and grant that she may always preserve that doctrine and discipline which you have delivered to her. Let your good hand be upon our nation and guide us in the way of righteousness and peace. Bless our universities and schools that they may be centers of true religion and useful learning. Be merciful to all that are in danger or distress; console all that are in pain or sorrow; and preserve those who travel. Give to all in error the light of your truth and bring sinners to repentance. O Lord, hear this our prayer through the merits of your Son Jesus Christ; and to your great name be all praise and glory, now and for evermore. Amen
In darkness and in light,
in trouble and in joy,
help us, heavenly Father,
to trust your love,
to serve your purpose,
and to praise your name,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
CLOSING HYMN
Open this link in a new tab to hear Synesius of Cyrene’s hymn, “Lord, Jesus Think on Me.”
1 Lord Jesus, think on me,
and purge away my sin:
from earthborn passions set me free,
and make me pure within.
2 Lord Jesus, think on me,
with care and woe oppressed;
let me Thy loving servant be,
and taste Thy promised rest.
3 Lord Jesus, think on me
Amid the battle's strife:
In all my pain and misery
Be Thou my Health and Life.
4 Lord Jesus, think on me,
nor let me go astray:
through darkness and perplexity
point Thou the heavenly way.
5 Lord Jesus, think on me,
When flows the tempest high:
When on doth rush the enemy,
O Saviour, be Thou nigh.
6 Lord Jesu, think on me,
That when the flood is past,
I may the Eternal brightness see,
and share Thy joy at last.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore.
Amen.
In the Sermon on the Plain in Luke’s Gospel Jesus instructs his disciples and the crowd—
“If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them! And if you do good only to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that, And if you lend only to those from whom you hope to get your money back, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners and expect to get their money back. No, you are to love your enemies and do good and lend without hope of return. Your reward will be wonderful and you will be sons of the most high. For he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked!
“You must be merciful, as your father in Heaven is merciful” (Luke 6:32-36 Phillips)
Paul writes the church at Ephesus—
“Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God” (Ephesians 5: 1-2).
If we are to be true witnesses to Jesus and to represent him well in the world, we need to embody the qualities of God’s character that he taught that we should emulate. This was Paul’s understanding of what Jesus taught, and if we are to be faithful disciples of Jesus, it must become our understanding too, not just something that we grasp intellectually but something that we have internalized along with these qualities.
Regrettably we often fall short in this regard due to several negative traits that every human being possesses. One of them is our proclivity to be judgmental. We are quick to find fault with others, indeed, to look for the worst in them. We quickly form negative opinions of them, based upon scant information and hastily made assumptions.
We let our opinions and feelings influence our judgment in a negative way. Rather than believe something good about someone, we choose to believe something bad about them when we have the possibility of doing either. We are inclined to give more credence to the bad things that we hear about people, even though they are gossip, rather than the good things that we hear about them.
We think about the worst possible things that could possibly happen in a situation, or we consider a situation as much worse or much more serious than it really is. When details are missing, we invent them.
We do not consider all the possibilities but fixate on one possibility and are unable to move away from it. We may as a consequence say or do inappropriate things that prove not only harmful to someone else but also to ourselves.
If we are to be true witnesses to Jesus and to represent him well in the world, we must learn to recognize these negative traits in ourselves and to keep a tight rein on them. Otherwise, they will become a serious hindrance to us embodying the qualities of God’s character that set a genuine follower of Jesus apart from other people. A lack of these qualities in ourselves will throw into doubt any claim that we make about God’s character, about his mercifulness, his willingness to treat humanity with kindness and care and to show us forgiveness. People will not believe what we say if they do not see any evidence of what we are saying in us.
We are the best advertisement for God’s grace when we show its good effects on us. We are the worst advertisement for his grace when we put our own negative characteristics on display. A good question that we can ask ourselves every day is, "What do I need to do better to be a good ad for God and for Jesus today?" and then go ahead and do what we have decided we need to do.
Silence
AFFIRMATION OF FAITH
Let us affirm our faith in the words of the Apostles Creed.
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth;
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead;
He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.
SONG OF PRAISE
Open this link in a new tab to hear Olando Gibbons’ setting of the Magnificat, "My Soul Doth Magnify the Lord."
My soul doth magnify the Lord, *
and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.
For he hath regarded *
the lowliness of his handmaiden.
For behold from henceforth *
all generations shall call me blessed.
For he that is mighty hath magnified me, *
and holy is his Name.
And his mercy is on them that fear him *
throughout all generations.
He hath showed strength with his arm; *
he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat, *
and hath exalted the humble and meek.
He hath filled the hungry with good things, *
and the rich he hath sent empty away.
He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel, *
as he promised to our forefathers,
Abraham and his seed for ever.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost: *
as it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be for ever. Amen.
PRAYERS
The Lord be with you.
The Lord bless you.
As our Savior taught his disciples,
we pray:
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory
for ever and ever.
Amen.
That this evening may be holy, good, and peaceful,
We entreat you, O Lord.
That your holy angels may lead us in paths of peace and
goodwill,
We entreat you, O Lord.
That we may be pardoned and forgiven for our sins
and offenses,
We entreat you, O Lord.
That there may be peace to your Church and to the whole
world,
We entreat you, O Lord.
That we may depart this life in your faith and fear,
and not be condemned before the great judgment seat
of Christ,
We entreat you, O Lord.
That we may be bound together by your Holy Spirit in
the communion of [________ and] all your saints,
entrusting one another and all our life to Christ,
We entreat you, O Lord.
Almighty and merciful God, by whose grace alone
your people offer you true and worthy service:
Grant that we may so faithfully serve you in this life
that we do not fail to obtain your heavenly promises
in the life to come; through the merits of Jesus Christ
our Lord. Amen.
In silent or spontaneous prayer all bring before God the concerns of the day.
Make known, O Lord, your loving kindness to the whole human race. Enlighten all the peoples of the earth with your truth and gather them into your flock. Be gracious to your Church, and grant that she may always preserve that doctrine and discipline which you have delivered to her. Let your good hand be upon our nation and guide us in the way of righteousness and peace. Bless our universities and schools that they may be centers of true religion and useful learning. Be merciful to all that are in danger or distress; console all that are in pain or sorrow; and preserve those who travel. Give to all in error the light of your truth and bring sinners to repentance. O Lord, hear this our prayer through the merits of your Son Jesus Christ; and to your great name be all praise and glory, now and for evermore. Amen
In darkness and in light,
in trouble and in joy,
help us, heavenly Father,
to trust your love,
to serve your purpose,
and to praise your name,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
CLOSING HYMN
Open this link in a new tab to hear Synesius of Cyrene’s hymn, “Lord, Jesus Think on Me.”
1 Lord Jesus, think on me,
and purge away my sin:
from earthborn passions set me free,
and make me pure within.
2 Lord Jesus, think on me,
with care and woe oppressed;
let me Thy loving servant be,
and taste Thy promised rest.
3 Lord Jesus, think on me
Amid the battle's strife:
In all my pain and misery
Be Thou my Health and Life.
4 Lord Jesus, think on me,
nor let me go astray:
through darkness and perplexity
point Thou the heavenly way.
5 Lord Jesus, think on me,
When flows the tempest high:
When on doth rush the enemy,
O Saviour, be Thou nigh.
6 Lord Jesu, think on me,
That when the flood is past,
I may the Eternal brightness see,
and share Thy joy at last.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore.
Amen.
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