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Morning Devotion for the Season of Christmas

December 25, 2023

Invitatory

Alleluia. Unto us a child is born: O come, let us adore him. Alleluia. 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

Reading:

The Right Reverend Frank Griswold wrote the following Prayer at Christmas four months after the attacks of 9/11. While we do not have the same immediate sense of violence, the world has not much changed in this regard. It is still the same world, and it is still the world to which God came… in love. And to be mindful, if even for a moment, of the cruelty, malice, and havoc that many suffer magnifies the gift we have received in God’s incarnation, presence, and redemption.

O God, your passionate Word to our warring and divided world is Jesus who, arms stretched upon a cross, breaks down all walls of division and hostility and holds all people and all creation in a fierce embrace of unyielding and unconquerable love.

As we celebrate his birth, give us eyes to see that the One who lies in the manger is more than a baby; he is our peace.

May Christ find room in our hearts anew to love the world through us “for the healing of the nations.”

This we pray in the name of the One who reconciled all things to you and is the source and ending of our life, Jesus, Emmanuel. Amen.

May God, who in the Word made flesh joined heaven to earth and earth to heaven, give you his peace and favor.

Peter Vanderveen