Prayers

Ash Wednesday Prayer

Jesus come and save us,

We are but dust,
We are like ashes,
but you can touch our unclean souls.

Jesus come and forgive us,

Our hearts are heavy,
Our burdens are great,
Cleanse us with the water of life.

Jesus come and heal us,

Restore our sight,
Teach us truth,
Speak to us words that bring us wholeness.

Jesus touch us with your heart of love,

Cleanse us with the water of life,
Restore our sight that we may see,
Teach us truth that we may lead Godly lives.

~ written by Christine Sine, and posted on the Godspace website.
http://msainfo.us/2012/02/17/join-us-at-godspace-during-lent/

Prayer of Contrition for Ash Wednesday

Save us, O God,
From the blindness,
which is not even aware that it is sinning;
From the pride,
which cannot admit that it is wrong;
From the self-will,
which can see nothing but its own way;
From the self-righteousness,
which can see no flaw within itself;
From the callousness,
which has sinned so often that it has ceased to care;
From the defiance,
which is not even sorry for its sins;
From the evasion,
which always puts the blame on someone or something else;
From the heart so hardened,
that it cannot repent.

Give us at all times,
Eyes which are open to our faults;
A conscience which is sensitive and quick to warn;
A heart that cannot sin in peace,
but is moved to regret and remorse.

So grant that being truly penitent we may be truly forgiven,
so that we may find that your love is great enough
to cover all of his sin; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

~ written by William Barclay in Prayers for the Christian Year (1965).
http://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/prayers-for-the-christian-year/author/barclay/

Prayer of Confession for Ash Wednesday

God of Compassion,
We turn toward you now. We rend our hearts.
Forgive our pride and forgive our insecurities.
Forgive our self-absorption and forgive our self-destruction.
Forgive our doubts and forgive our confidence.
Forgive our longing for attention and forgive our desire to hide.
Forgive each step we take away from you.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God. And renew a right spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence. Do not take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of my salvation, and grant a willing spirit to sustain me.”

~ posted by Joanna Harader on Spacious Faith.
http://spaciousfaith.com/

A Time of Turning Round

Truly dust we are, and to dust we shall return;
and truly yours we are, and to you we shall return.
Help this to be a time of turning round and beginning again.

Through the forty days of Lent, help us to follow you
and to find you: in the discipline of praying
and in the drudgery of caring –
in whatever we deny ourselves,
and whatever we set ourselves to learn or do.

Help us to discover you
in our loneliness and in community,
in our emptiness and our fulfilment,
in our sadness and our laughter.

Help us to find you when we ourselves are lost.

Help us to follow you on the journey to Jerusalem
to the waving palms of the people’s hope,
to their rejection, to the cross and empty tomb.
Help us to perceive new growth amid the ashes of the old.
Help us, carrying your cross, to be signs of your Kingdom.

Amen.

~ written by Jan Sutch Pickard. Posted on the website of Patmos Abbey—The Order of Saint Columba.
http://www.patmosabbey.org/