Daily Prayers for February 5

On February 1, 1960, four college students — ​Ezell A. Blair Jr., David Richmond, Joseph McNeil, and Franklin McCain — ​initiated the first sit-in demonstration at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. The store manager ignored the protestors, hoping they would leave. The next day, twenty-seven more students came to protest. By February 5, three hundred students had arrived, igniting a mass movement of sit-ins for desegregation throughout the South.

O Lord, let my soul rise up to meet you

as the day rises to meet the sun.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,

as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Come, let us sing to the Lord : let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.

Song “This Little Light of Mine”

May our sitting down and our rising up : contribute, Lord, to your kingdom’s work.

Psalm 27:11 14

Show me your way, O Lord : lead me on a level path, because of my enemies.

Deliver me not into the hand of my adversaries : for false witnesses have risen up against me, and also those who speak malice.

What if I had not believed that I should see the goodness of the Lord : in the land of the living!

O tarry and await the Lord’s pleasure; be strong, and he shall comfort your heart : wait patiently for the Lord.

May our sitting down and our rising up : contribute, Lord, to your kingdom’s work.

Genesis 24:50 – 67 John 14:1 – 7

May our sitting down and our rising up : contribute, Lord, to your kingdom’s work.

Eighteenth-century Jesuit Jean-Pierre de Caussade wrote, “The great and firm foundation of the spiritual life is the offering of ourselves to God and being subject to his will in all things. We must completely forget ourselves, so that we regard ourselves as an object which has been sold and over which we no longer have any rights. We find all our joy in fulfilling God’s pleasure — ​his happiness, his glory and the fact that he is our great and only delight. Once we have this foundation, all we need to do is spend our lives rejoicing that God is God and being so wholly abandoned to his will that we are quite indifferent as to what we do and equally indifferent as to what use he makes of our activities.”

Prayers for Others

Our Father

Lord, remind us that it is not always agitated uprisings and nonstop activity which lead to justice, but that change often comes through the quiet commitment of a small group of -people. Help us raise our small body of -people to set about quietly becoming the change we want to see in the world. Amen.

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.

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