Spirituality: Daily Prayer

Friday 14 August 2026

Morning Prayer

Maximilien Kolbe, Priest and Martyr, 1941
Week of Proper 19

O Lord, open our lips:
and our mouth shall proclaim your praise.

Glory to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit;*
as it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be for ever.

Amen.

Psalmody

Antiphon: Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness; make your way straight before me. Psalm 5.8


Opening

Venite

1 O come let us sing out to the Lord,*
let us shout in triumph to the rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before his face with thanksgiving*
and cry out to him joyfully in psalms.
3 For the Lord is a great God,*
and a great king above all gods.
4 In his hands are the depths of the earth,*
and the peaks of the mountains are his also.
5 The sea is his and he made it;*
his hands moulded dry land.
6 Come let us worship and bow down,*
and kneel before the Lord our maker.
7 For he himself is our God;*
we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.
8 Today if only you would hear his voice:*
‘Do not harden your hearts as Israel did in the wilderness;
9 when your fathers tested me;*
put me to proof though they had seen my works.
10 Of whom I swore in my wrath:*
“They shall not enter my rest.”’

Glory to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit;*
as it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be for ever. Amen.

or a suitable Hymn
(Or from Psalm 5)

1 In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice;*
early in the morning I make my appeal and watch for you.
2 Through the greatness of your mercy I will go into your house;*
I will bow down toward your holy temple in awe of you.
3 All who take refuge in you will be glad;*
they will sing out their joy for ever.
4 You will shelter them,*
so that those who love your name may exult in you.

Glory to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit;*
as it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be for ever. Amen.

or a suitable hymn


Psalm 86

1 Bow down your ear, O Lord, and answer me,*
for I am poor and in misery.

2 Keep watch over my life, for I am faithful;*
save your servant who puts his trust in you.

3 Be merciful to me, O Lord, for you are my God;*
I call upon you all the day long.

4 Gladden the soul of your servant,*
for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

5 For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,*
and great is your love toward all who call upon you.

6 Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer,*
and attend to the voice of my supplications.

7 In the time of my trouble I will call upon you,*
for you will answer me.

8 Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord,*
nor anything like your works.

9 All nations you have made will come and
worship you, O Lord,*
and glorify your name.

10 For you are great;
you do wondrous things;*
and you alone are God.

11 Teach me your way, O Lord,
and I will walk in your truth;*
knit my heart to you that I may fear your name.

12 I will thank you, O Lord my God, with all my heart,*
and glorify your name for evermore.

13 For great is your love toward me;*
you have delivered me from the nethermost Pit.

14 The arrogant rise up against me, O God,
and a band of violent men seeks my life;*
they have not set you before their eyes.

15 But you, O Lord, are gracious and full of compassion,*
slow to anger, and full of kindness and truth.

16 Turn to me and have mercy upon me;*
give your strength to your servant;
and save the child of your handmaid.

17 Show me a sign of your favour,
so that those who hate me may see it and be ashamed;*
because you, O Lord, have helped me and comforted me.

Glory to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit;*
as it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be for ever. Amen.

God of mercy, fill us with the love of your name, and help us to proclaim you before the world, that all peoples may celebrate your glory in Jesus Christ our Lord.


Conclusion

Isaiah 66

1 Rejoice with Jerusalem and exult in her,*
all you who love her.
2 Share her joy with all your heart,*
all you who mourn over her.
3 Then you may suck and be fed from her breasts,*
delighting in her plentiful milk.
4 For thus says the Lord, I will send peace flowing over her like a river,*
and the wealth of nations like a stream in flood;
5 you shall be carried in her arms,*
and rocked upon her knees.
6 As a mother comforts her child,*
so will I myself comfort you, and you shall find strength in Jerusalem.
7 This you shall see and be glad at heart;*
your limbs shall be as the fresh grass in spring.
8 Then I myself will gather all nations;*
and they shall come and behold my glory.

Glory to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit;*
as it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be for ever. Amen.

Antiphon: Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness; make your way straight before me.

Reading(s)

Judges 14.20-15.20

And Samson’s wife was given to his companion, who had been his best man. After a while, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife, bringing along a kid. He said, ‘I want to go into my wife’s room.’ But her father would not allow him to go in. Her father said, ‘I was sure that you had rejected her; so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister prettier than she? Why not take her instead?’ Samson said to them, ‘This time, when I do mischief to the Philistines, I will be without blame.’ So Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took some torches; and he turned the foxes tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails. When he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves. Then the Philistines asked, ‘Who has done this?’ And they said, ‘Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken Samson’s wife and given her to his companion.’ So the Philistines came up, and burned her and her father. Samson said to them, ‘If this is what you do, I swear I will not stop until I have taken revenge on you.’ He struck them down hip and thigh with great slaughter; and he went down and lived in the cleft of the rock of Etam. Then the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah, and made a raid on Lehi. The men of Judah said, ‘Why have you come up against us?’ They said, ‘We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he did to us.’ Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and they said to Samson, ‘Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then have you done to us?’ He replied, ‘As they did to me, so I have done to them.’ They said to him, ‘We have come down to bind you, so that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines.’ Samson answered them, ‘Swear to me that you yourselves will not attack me.’ They said to him, ‘No, we will only bind you and give you into their hands; we will not kill you.’ So they bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock. When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him; and the spirit of the Lord rushed on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands. Then he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached down and took it, and with it he killed a thousand men. And Samson said, ‘With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey I have slain a thousand men.’ When he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone; and that place was called Ramath-lehi. By then he was very thirsty, and he called on the Lord, saying, ‘You have granted this great victory by the hand of your servant. Am I now to die of thirst, and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?’ So God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came from it. When he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore it was named En-hakkore, which is at Lehi to this day. And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines for twenty years.


Acts 7.17-29

‘But as the time drew near for the fulfilment of the promise that God had made to Abraham, our people in Egypt increased and multiplied until another king who had not known Joseph ruled over Egypt. He dealt craftily with our race and forced our ancestors to abandon their infants so that they would die. At this time Moses was born, and he was beautiful before God. For three months he was brought up in his father’s house; and when he was abandoned, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. So Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his words and deeds. ‘When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his relatives, the Israelites. When he saw one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. He supposed that his kinsfolk would understand that God through him was rescuing them, but they did not understand. The next day he came to some of them as they were quarrelling and tried to reconcile them, saying, “Men, you are brothers; why do you wrong each other?” But the man who was wronging his neighbour pushed Moses aside, saying, “Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?” When he heard this, Moses fled and became a resident alien in the land of Midian. There he became the father of two sons.


Silence


Response Psalm (Psalm 33.18)

The eye of the Lord is upon those who fear him.
The eye of the Lord is upon those who fear him.
On those who wait upon his love.
On those who fear him.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.
The eye of the Lord is upon those who fear him.

Benedictus

Benedictus antiphon: In tender compassion, God's dawn has broken upon us.

1 Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel,* for he has come to his people and set them free.
2 He has raised up for us a mighty saviour,* born of the house of his servant David.
3 Through his holy prophets he promised of old* that he would save us from our enemies, from the hands of all that hate us.
4 He promised to show mercy to our forebears,* and to remember his holy covenant.
5 This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham:* to set us free from the hands of our enemies,
6 free to worship him without fear,* holy and righteous in his sight all the days of our life.
7 You my child shall be called the prophet of the Most High,* for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,
8 to give his people knowledge of salvation* by the forgiveness of all their sins.
9 In the tender compassion of our God* the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
10 to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,* and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Glory to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit;*
as it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be for ever. Amen.

(may be said by all)

Benedictus antiphon: In tender compassion, God's dawn has broken upon us.

Prayers

Lord, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Do not bring us to the time of trial,
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours,
now and for ever.
Amen


Collect of the Day

Open your merciful ears, O Lord,
to the prayers of your humble servants:
and, that you would graciously grant what we ask,
make us desire what is pleasing in your sight;
through Jesus Christ, our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, world without end.
Amen

God most holy, we give you thanks for bringing us out of the shadow of night into the light of morning; and we ask you for the joy of spending this day in your service, so that when evening comes, we may once more give you thanks, through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord.
Amen

Let us bless the Lord:
Thanks be to God!

The Lord bless us and preserve us from all evil;
and bring us to life eternal.
Amen.

Print Prayers