Morning Prayer
+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Opening sentence
One thing I have asked of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to behold the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple.
You will find the Lord your God, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Morning readings
Psalm 68:1, 3 NLT:
Rise up, O God, and scatter your enemies. Let those who hate God run for their lives.
But let the godly rejoice. Let them be glad in God’s presence. Let them be filled with joy.
Esther 3:1-6 NLT:
Some time later King Xerxes promoted Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite over all the other nobles, making him the most powerful official in the empire. All the king’s officials would bow down before Haman to show him respect whenever he passed by, for so the king had commanded. But Mordecai refused to bow down or show him respect.
Then the palace officials at the king’s gate asked Mordecai, “Why are you disobeying the king’s command?” They spoke to him day after day, but still he refused to comply with the order. So they spoke to Haman about this to see if he would tolerate Mordecai’s conduct, since Mordecai had told them he was a Jew.
When Haman saw that Mordecai would not bow down or show him respect, he was filled with rage. He had learned of Mordecai’s nationality, so he decided it was not enough to lay hands on Mordecai alone. Instead, he looked for a way to destroy all the Jews throughout the entire empire of Xerxes.
Luke 1:51-55 NLT:
“His mighty arm has done tremendous things! He has scattered the proud and haughty ones. He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands. He has helped his servant Israel and remembered to be merciful. For he made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever.”
Reflection/Prayer:
Purim, which commemorates the deliverance of the Jews from the hands of Haman through Esther the queen and her uncle Mordecai, is a feast of reversals. It reminds us that eventually the Evil One’s machinations will be tolerated no longer and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.
Purim is the nearest thing Judaism has to a carnival. The Talmud gives leave to a worshipper to drink on this day until he cannot tell the difference between ‘Blessed be Modecai’ and ‘Cursed be Haman’. To the credit of many otherwise non-observant Jews, they often do their best to comply. In Israel a public street festival not unlike Mardi Gras has sprung up, with the name As’lo Yoda, the Talmud word for ‘until he cannot tell the difference’.
The day before Purim is the Fast of Esther, a sunrise-to-sundown abstention. At sundown the synagogues fill up. The marked difference between this and all other occasions of the Jewish year is the number of children on hand. Purim is the children’s night in the house of the Lord. It always has been, and the children sense their rights and exercise them.
They carry flags and nosiemakers, the traditional whirling rattles called ‘groggers’, which can make a staggering racket. After the evening prayers the reading of the Book of Esther begins, solemnly enough, with the customary blessing over a scroll and the chanting of the opening verses in a special musical mode heard only on this holiday. The Reader chants through the first and second chapters and comes at last to the long awaited sentence.
‘After these things, the king raised to power Haman the Agagite’ – but nobody hears the last two words. The name ‘Haman’ triggers off stamping, pounding, and a hurricane of groggers. The Reader waits patiently. The din dies. He chants on, and soon strikes another ‘Haman’. Bedlam breaks loose again. This continues, and since Haman is now a chief figure in the story, the noisy outbursts come pretty frequently. The children, far from getting tired or bored, warm up to the work. They do it with sure mob instinct; poised silence during the reading, with explosions on each ‘Haman’. Passages occur where Haman’s name crops up in very short space. The children’s assaults come like pistol shots. The Reader’s patience wears thin and finally breaks. It is impossible to read with so many interuptions.
He gestures angrily at the children through the grogger storm and shoots a glance of appeal to the rabbi. This, of course, is what the children have been waiting for…. Thereafter to the end it is a merciless battle between the Reader and the children. He tries to slur over the thick falling ‘Haman’s, they rip him every time with raucous salvos. He stumbles on to the final verse, exhausted, beaten, furious, and all is disordered hilarity in the synagogue. It is perhaps not fair to make the Reader stand in for Haman on this evening, but that is approximately what happens.
Herman Wouk, This is my God
Canticle
Christ, as a light… illumine and guide me. Christ, as a shield… overshadow me. Christ under me; Christ over me; Christ beside me on my left and my right.
This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful. Be in the heart of each to whom I speak; in the mouth of each who speaks unto me. This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Christ as a light; Christ as a shield; Christ beside me on my left and my right.
Blessing
May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you, wherever He may send you. May He guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm. May He bring you home rejoicing at the wonders He has shown you. May He bring you home rejoicing once again into our doors.
+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
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Peanut Gallery: The Morning Prayer readings are from the Daily Office of the Northumbrian Community as available online here… and in the book form, Celtic Daily Prayer available on Amazon.com.
The website and prayer book are rich in prayer resources and I commend them to you. For our purpose here, I will limit my selections to the Morning Prayer resources.
The Peanut Gallery 