March 30, 2007
Lent: Day 40 - Prayer & Scripture
To Do Today
Examine your goals. Do they reflect your faith?
Today’s Prayer
Lord, have mercy on me, for I am condemned to death
on the day of my life-breath?s release,
while I implore on high with my eyes? pitiful gaze
fixed the perils ahead on that unavoidable journey,
with danger on all sides in my terrified imagination.
And while gazing at my cell?s ceiling where I will start
my outward journey, wretched and half dead with
a twisted face, with shaking fingers, muffled sighs,
failing cries, a thin voice, my grieving soul
shaken by a panoply of
doubts, I shall lament from the bottom of
my invisible soul the sins I have committed.
You are able, compassionate God, to perform a miracle
with your everlasting might saying,
?Be healed of your soul?s torment,?
or ?May your sins be forgiven,?
or ?Go in peace. You are cleansed of sin.?
And whatever I do not manage to say at that hour
receive from me today in your love for mankind,
O long-suffering, generous God, who gives life to all.
Today’s Scripture (Reading)
Isaiah 46:3 - 47:4
“Hearken to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from your birth, carried from the womb;
even to your old age I am He, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.
“To whom will you liken me and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be alike?
Those who lavish gold from the purse, and weigh out silver in the scales, hire a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god; then they fall down and worship!
They lift it upon their shoulders, they carry it, they set it in its place, and it stands there; it cannot move from its place. If one cries to it, it does not answer or save him from his trouble.
“Remember this and consider, recall it to mind, you transgressors,
remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, `My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’
calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.
“Hearken to me, you stubborn of heart, you who are far from deliverance
I bring near my deliverance, it is not far off, and my salvation will not tarry; I will put salvation in Zion, for Israel my glory.”
Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chalde’ans! For you shall no more be called tender and delicate.
Take the millstones and grind meal, put off your veil, strip off your robe, uncover your legs, pass through the rivers.
Your nakedness shall be uncovered, and your shame shall be seen. I will take vengeance, and I will spare no man.
Our Redeemer — the LORD of hosts is his name — is the Holy One of Israel.
Daily Prayer and Scripture taken from the Armenian Church website
