(With thanks to Lindsay Meader and St James Piccadilly)
A pdf of the Daily Office for Ordinary Time is available here.
If you would like to read the Daily Office for Ordinary Time go here.
If you would like to print out a copy of the Weekly Collect and Daily readings for 8-21 January 2012 as a pdf file click here.
Holding on to the Silence 2012
Weekly Collect and Daily Readings from Sunday 8 to Saturday 21 January 2012
Collect for Sunday 8 - Saturday 14 January:
God of change and of beginnings: in Christ you make all things new. Transform us by the richness of your grace, and in the renewal of our lives make known your heavenly glory; through Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.
Collect for Sunday 15 - Saturday 21 January:
O Christ, whose life revealed in signs and miracles
the dawning of a new age; and the abundance of whose gifts, like new wine, celebrates life itself:
fill us with your enlivening spirit, that with sheer joy we may open ourselves to that fullness of life which is your gift. To you be all honour and glory. Amen.
Daily Readings:
Between now and the beginning of Lent we will be following the first letter of Peter, believed to have been written (not necessarily by Peter) just before Peter’s death in AD 65. 1 Peter is a pastoral document, addressed to "visiting strangers" and "resident aliens", who have found a home in the Christian church but are now facing pagan hostility. (There is no evidence of state persecution; indeed the letter advises respect for emperor and state.) The writer exhorts the readers to stand firm in their faith, remembering that persecution is a sign of their calling.
Sunday 8 January
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood: May grace and peace be yours in abundance. 1 Peter 1:1-2
We must not trust every word of others or feeling within ourselves, but cautiously and patiently try the matter, to see whether it is of God. Thomas à Kempis
Monday 9 January
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 1 Peter 1:3-5
Clay pots are essential vehicles to transmit God’s love to us, but God is a mystery that always transcends the clay pots in which that love is contained. Richard Randerson, A Word in Season
Tuesday 10 January
In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. 1 Peter 1:6-7
The word of God turned out to be plenty strong enough to withstand my curiosity. Every time I poked it, it poked me back. Every time I wrenched it around so I could see inside, it sprang back into shape the moment I was through. In short, the Bible turned out not to be a fossil under glass but a thousand different things – a mirror, a scythe, a hammock, a lantern, a pair of binoculars, a high diving board, a bridge, a goad – all of them offering themselves to me to be touched and handled and used. Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life
Wednesday 11 January
Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:8-9
Love is life, All, everything that I understand, I understand because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source. Leo Tolstoy.
Thursday 12 January
Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours made careful search and inquiry, inquiring about the person or time that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated when it testified in advance to the sufferings destined for Christ and the subsequent glory. 1 Peter 1:10-11
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. William Cowper
Friday 13 January
It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in regard to the things that have now been announced to you through those who brought you good news by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look! 1 Peter 1:12-13
Our faith comes in moments. Yet there is a depth in those brief moments which constrains us to ascribe more reality to them than to all other experiences. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Saturday 14 January
Therefore prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed. Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. 1 Peter 1:13-14
The spirit and meaning of Christ are present and perceptible to us even without the aid of miracles. Carl Jung
Sunday 15 January
Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile. 1 Peter 1:15-17
It takes a proud man to say he never needs any help. And I have yet to meet an atheist in a lifeboat or in the death zone on Everest. My faith has been the secret strength that has carried me through so much in my life. Bear Grylls in Readers Digest (June 2011)
Monday 16 January
You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. 1 Peter 1:18-20
Walking down the street, I see a wild-looking character sitting on the steps of the library. His gray hair is matted. His dense beard covers the slogan on his grimy T-shirt. His small darting eyes are as volatile as a hawk’s. I look once and think, "drifter." I look twice and think "John the Baptist," and in that imaginative act my relationship to the world in which I live is changed. Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life
Tuesday 17 January
Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God. Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God. 1 Peter 1:21-23
God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees, and flowers, and clouds, and stars. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wednesday 18 January
For "All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever." That word is the good news that was announced to you. 1 Peter 1:24
There is in every miracle a silent chiding of the world, and a tacit reprehension of them who require, or who need miracles. John Donne
Thursday 19 January
Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. 1 Peter 2:1-3
A man prayed, and at first he thought that prayer was talking. But he became more quiet until in the end he realized that prayer is listening. Søren Kierkegaard
Friday 20 January
Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:4-5
Faith is the vital artery of the soul. Thomas Watson.
Saturday 21 January
For it stands in scripture: "See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame." To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner," and "A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall." They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. 1 Peter 2:6-8
Faith is not refuge from normality. It is a demand that we face reality, with all its difficulties, opportunities and implications. Evelyn Underhill