Morning Prayer - Feb 14

Cyril and Methodius, Missionaries to the Slavs, 869 and 885
Valentine, Martyr at Rome, c.269

Psalm 31
In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge; let me never be put to shame; deliver me in your righteousness.
Incline your ear to me; make haste to deliver me.
Be my strong rock, a fortress to save me, for you are my rock and my stronghold; guide me, and lead me for your name’s sake.
Take me out of the net that they have laid secretly for me, for you are my strength.
Into your hands I commend my spirit, for you have redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.

I hate those who cling to worthless idols; I put my trust in the Lord.
I will be glad and rejoice in your mercy, for you have seen my affliction and known my soul in adversity.
You have not shut me up in the hand of the enemy; you have set my feet in an open place.

Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am in trouble; my eye is consumed with sorrow, my soul and my body also. For my life is wasted with grief, and my years with sighing; my strength fails me because of my affliction, and my bones are consumed. I have become a reproach to all my enemies and even to my neighbours, an object of dread to my acquaintances; when they see me in the street they flee from me. I am forgotten like one that is dead, out of mind; I have become like a broken vessel. For I have heard the whispering of the crowd; fear is on every side; they scheme together against me, and plot to take my life.

But my trust is in you, O Lord. I have said,
‘You are my God. My times are in your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies, and from those who persecute me. Make your face to shine upon your servant, and save me for your mercy’s sake.’

Lord, let me not be confounded for I have called upon you; but let the wicked be put to shame; let them be silent in the grave.
Let the lying lips be put to silence that speak against the righteous with arrogance, disdain and contempt.

How abundant is your goodness, O Lord, which you have laid up for those who fear you; which you have prepared in the sight of all
for those who put their trust in you. You hide them in the shelter of your presence from those who slander them; you keep them safe in your refuge from the strife of tongues. Blessed be the Lord! For he has shown me his steadfast love when I was as a city besieged. I had said in my alarm,
‘I have been cut off from the sight of your eyes.’
Nevertheless, you heard the voice of my prayer when I cried out to you.

Love the Lord, all you his servants; for the Lord protects the faithful, but repays to the full the proud.
Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait in hope for the Lord

Leviticus 25.1-24
The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying: Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land shall observe a sabbath for the Lord. For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in their yield; but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath for the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your unpruned vine: it shall be a year of complete rest for the land. You may eat what the land yields during its sabbath—you, your male and female slaves, your hired and your bound labourers who live with you; for your livestock also, and for the wild animals in your land all its yield shall be for food.
You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month—on the day of atonement—you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you: you shall not sow, or reap the aftergrowth, or harvest the unpruned vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the field itself produces.

In this year of jubilee you shall return, every one of you, to your property. When you make a sale to your neighbour or buy from your neighbour, you shall not cheat one another. When you buy from your neighbour, you shall pay only for the number of years since the jubilee; the seller shall charge you only for the remaining crop-years. If the years are more, you shall increase the price, and if the years are fewer, you shall diminish the price; for it is a certain number of harvests that are being sold to you. You shall not cheat one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the Lord your God.

You shall observe my statutes and faithfully keep my ordinances, so that you may live on the land securely. The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live on it securely. Should you ask, ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ I will order my blessing for you in the sixth year, so that it will yield a crop for three years. When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating from the old crop; until the ninth year, when its produce comes in, you shall eat the old. The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants. Throughout the land that you hold, you shall provide for the redemption of the land.

1 Timothy 5.1-16
Do not speak harshly to an older man, but speak to him as to a father, to younger men as brothers, to older women as mothers, to younger women as sisters—with absolute purity.

Honour widows who are really widows. If a widow has children or grandchildren, they should first learn their religious duty to their own family and make some repayment to their parents; for this is pleasing in God’s sight. The real widow, left alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day; but the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives. Give these commands as well, so that they may be above reproach. And whoever does not provide for relatives, and especially for family members, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Let a widow be put on the list if she is not less than sixty years old and has been married only once; she must be well attested for her good works, as one who has brought up children, shown hospitality, washed the saints’ feet, helped the afflicted, and devoted herself to doing good in every way. But refuse to put younger widows on the list; for when their sensual desires alienate them from Christ, they want to marry, and so they incur condemnation for having violated their first pledge. Besides that, they learn to be idle, gadding about from house to house; and they are not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not say. So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, and manage their households, so as to give the adversary no occasion to revile us. For some have already turned away to follow Satan. If any believing woman has relatives who are really widows, let her assist them; let the church not be burdened, so that it can assist those who are real widows.

The Collect
Lord of all,
who gave to your servants Cyril and Methodius the gift of tongues to proclaim the gospel to the Slavs:
make your whole Church one as you are one that all Christians may honour one another,
and east and west acknowledge one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and you, the God and Father of all;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Daily Office - Feb 14

Cyril and Methodius, Missionaries to the Slavs, 869 and 885
Valentine, Martyr at Rome, c.269

Psalm 77
I cry aloud to God; I cry aloud to God and he will hear me.
In the day of my trouble I have sought the Lord;
by night my hand is stretched out and does not tire; my soul refuses comfort.
I think upon God and I groan; I ponder, and my spirit faints.
You will not let my eyelids close; I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
I consider the days of old;
I remember the years long past;
I commune with my heart in the night; my spirit searches for understanding.
Will the Lord cast us off for ever?
Will he no more show us his favour?
Has his loving mercy clean gone for ever?
Has his promise come to an end for evermore?
Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has he shut up his compassion in displeasure?

And I said, ‘My grief is this:
that the right hand of the Most High has lost its strength.’
I will remember the works of the Lord and call to mind your wonders of old time.
I will meditate on all your works and ponder your mighty deeds.
Your way, O God, is holy; who is so great a god as our God?
You are the God who worked wonders and declared your power among the peoples.
With a mighty arm you redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph.
The waters saw you, O God; =
the waters saw you and were afraid;
the depths also were troubled.
The clouds poured out water; the skies thundered; your arrows flashed on every side;
The voice of your thunder was in the whirlwind;
your lightnings lit up the ground; the earth trembled and shook.
Your way was in the sea, and your paths in the great waters, but your footsteps were not known.
You led your people like sheep by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

Jeremiah 2.14-32
Is Israel a slave? Is he a home-born servant? Why then has he become plunder?
The lions have roared against him, they have roared loudly.
They have made his land a waste; his cities are in ruins, without inhabitant.
Moreover, the people of Memphis and Tahpanhes have broken the crown of your head.
Have you not brought this upon yourself by forsaking the Lord your God, while he led you in the way?
What then do you gain by going to Egypt, to drink the waters of the Nile?
Or what do you gain by going to Assyria, to drink the waters of the Euphrates?
Your wickedness will punish you, and your apostasies will convict you.
Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God;
the fear of me is not in you, says the Lord God of hosts.

For long ago you broke your yoke and burst your bonds, and you said, ‘I will not serve!’
On every high hill and under every green tree you sprawled and played the whore.
Yet I planted you as a choice vine, from the purest stock.
How then did you turn degenerate and become a wild vine?
Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap,
the stain of your guilt is still before me,
says the Lord God.

How can you say, ‘I am not defiled,
   I have not gone after the Baals’?
Look at your way in the valley;
   know what you have done - a restive young camel interlacing her tracks,
   a wild ass at home in the wilderness, in her heat sniffing the wind!
   Who can restrain her lust?
None who seek her need weary themselves;
   in her month they will find her.
Keep your feet from going unshod and your throat from thirst.
But you said, ‘It is hopeless, for I have loved strangers, and after them I will go.’

As a thief is shamed when caught, so the house of Israel shall be shamed -
they, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets,
who say to a tree, ‘You are my father’,
   and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’
For they have turned their backs to me, and not their faces.
But in the time of their trouble they say,
   ‘Come and save us!’
But where are your gods that you made for yourself?
Let them come, if they can save you, in your time of trouble;
for you have as many gods as you have towns, O Judah.

Why do you complain against me?
You have all rebelled against me,
says the Lord.

In vain I have struck down your children; they accepted no correction.
Your own sword devoured your prophets like a ravening lion.
And you, O generation, behold the word of the Lord!
Have I been a wilderness to Israel, or a land of thick darkness?
Why then do my people say, ‘We are free, we will come to you no more’?
Can a girl forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire?
Yet my people have forgotten me, days without number.

John 4.1-26
Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard,
‘Jesus is making and baptising more disciples than John’
- although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptised - he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria.

So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’.
(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.)

The Samaritan woman said to him,
‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’
(Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered her,
‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’

The woman said to him,
‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’

Jesus said to her,
‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’

The woman said to him,
‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’

Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’

The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’

Jesus said to her,
‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.

What you have said is true!’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’

Jesus said to her,
‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’

The woman said to him,
‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’

Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’

The Collect
Lord of all,
who gave to your servants Cyril and Methodius
the gift of tongues to proclaim the gospel to the Slavs:
make your whole Church one as you are one
that all Christians may honour one another,
and east and west acknowledge
      one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
and you, the God and Father of all;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.