Day 8: Dreaming & Reimagining

Acts 10. 9-16 "The voice said to him again, a second time, ‘WhatGod has made clean, you must not call profane.’...This happened three times."

Come Holy Spirit, renew your calling and breathe new life within us.

• We thank you for breaking into our closed minds with an ‘upside- downness’
• We listen for signs that interrupt our expectations and assumptions
• We wait upon your spirit to weigh us down with burdens which only you can bear
• We seek your daringness that swells our imagination to bursting.

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Diocese of Canterbury: n9vena
nine days of prayer 2013

Art by Jenny Jawke: www.creativegrace.biz

Day 8: Trusting & Accepting

Acts 1.21-26: Show us which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry. ... And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles.

Come Holy Spirit, renew your calling and breathe new life within us.

• We thank you for the trust you show in our hidden capacities to serve
• We listen together for the signs and hunches that signify a calling
• We wait in anticipation that you will show us how to ‘be chosen’ for unsought tasks
• We seek your discerning will in the ordinary choosing we do together and alone

https://twitter.com/n9vena

Diocese of Canterbury: n9vena : nine days of prayer 2013

Art by Jenny Jawke: www.creativegrace.biz

Day 7: Affirmed & Challenged

John 21.15-19 ‘Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you loveme more than these? … Feed my lambs. … Tend my sheep. … Feed my sheep. … Follow me.”’

Come Holy Spirit, renew your calling and breathe new life within us.

• We thank you that you speak into our empty promises and resurrect our capacity to love
• We listen and seek to share your overwhelming compassion for each person on this planet
• We wait together for your calling that stretches us beyond our imagination, that only you can fulfil
• We seek a love that grows as we give it away in trust

https://twitter.com/n9vena

Diocese of Canterbury: n9vena : nine days of prayer 2013

Art by Jenny Jawke: www.creativegrace.biz

Day 6: Letting God and Witnessing

John 20.16-18 'Do not hold on to me, ...but go to my brothers'.

Come Holy Spirit, renew your calling and breathe new life within us.

• We thank you for unimaginable surprises that set us towards unforeseen directions
• We listen and let go of the controlling impulses to stay where we are
• We wait upon your resurrection presence pressing us to tell new stories of hope
• We seek your inner life/intimate nearness to speak the unspeakable reality of you

https://twitter.com/n9vena

Diocese of Canterbury: n9vena : nine days of prayer 2013

Art by Jenny Jawke: www.creativegrace.biz

Day 5: Hoping and Expecting

Luke 2.36-38 (Anna, as a widow to the age of eighty-four, never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day). Anna began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

Come Holy Spirit, renew your calling and breathe new life within us.

• We thank you for those called to be steadfast witnesses of praise in every age
• We listen in search of patience where change seems far away
• We wait with you to see signs of hope and to share the truth of what we see
• We seek your grace to align ourselves with those who yearn for signs of new life

https://twitter.com/n9vena

Diocese of Canterbury: n9vena : nine days of prayer 2013

Art by Jenny Jawke: www.creativegrace.biz

Day 4: Believing and Repenting

Jonah 3.1-5: 'The people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth'.

Come Holy Spirit, renew your calling and breathe new life within us.

• We thank you for unsuspecting messengers of light- a light that draws us to life
• We listen for a new music that connects us to all that is truly life giving
• We wait together in repentance, seeking to shed everything that keeps us from your power to heal
• We ask for grace to respond deeply to your alternative vision for humanity

https://twitter.com/n9vena

Diocese of Canterbury: n9vena : nine days of prayer 2013

Art by Jenny Jawke: www.creativegrace.biz

Day 3: Sunday 12 May : Attending and listening 

I Sam 3.1-10 "Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ And Samuel said, ‘Speak, for your servant is listening.’"

In the poetry of St John of the Cross, God's voice calling in the night elicits from the listening contemplative the language of love, the sensuality of a lover's blossoming desire. For the contemplative discovers that the One he loves, in the darkness of night, has secretly made the creature his beloved. His senses become sharpened by a single-minded focus, his heart is fuelled by passion, and he himself becomes transformed in the embrace of the Beloved. "Oh night that guided! oh night dearer than the dawn! Oh night that joined the Lover with beloved, beloved in the Lover transformed!" In the image above, the flame is no ordinary source of warmth: to be found near it is to have shadows dispelled in its light and to be drawn into the heat of a consuming fire. In the passage narrative of the biblical Samuel, to hear God's voice, to be named by the voice of Love, is to fall into an unexpected innocence: for without yet knowing the full extent of his calling, we simply say, 'Here I am, you called me' (1 Sam 3.5).

Come Holy Spirit, renew your calling and breathe new life within us.

• We thank you that your inextinguishable light gives us hope in dark times
• We listen through surrounding noises and silences for the sound of our name
• We wait in barren and unexpected places for your renewing work
• We seek courage and knowledge to help one another hear God’s word  

https://twitter.com/n9vena

Diocese of Canterbury: n9vena : nine days of prayer 2013

Art by Jenny Jawke: www.creativegrace.biz

Day 2 — Saturday 11 May: Going & Risking

Exodus 3.9-12 "Moses said to God, 'Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?' ...God said, 'I will be with you."

Come Holy Spirit, renew your calling and breathe new life within us.

• We thank you for your direction- however unable we feel to respond 
• We listen with you to the heartfelt cry of your people for justice and freedom
• We wait together with our brothers and sisters to discern courageously where each step leads
• We seek your grace to be undaunted by the powers and principalities that enslave your people 





https://twitter.com/n9vena

Diocese of Canterbury: n9vena : nine days of prayer 2013

Day 1: 10th May — Being & Belonging

Genesis 1.27-31 "So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. ... And it was very good."

Come Holy Spirit, renew your calling and breathe new life within us.      

• We thank you that we can gaze together upon the wondrous mystery of creation·
• We listen for your calling to ‘be’ amidst the chaotic voices that would be worshipped·
• We wait for a reimagined sense of what we as a renewed humanity might be·
• We seek an interconnectedness that empowers us to dance with all creation.

•   





https://twitter.com/n9vena

Diocese of Canterbury: n9vena : nine days of prayer 2013

Nine Days of Prayer/Novena 2013Friday May 10th to Saturday May 18th

Nine biblical stories that invite us to ‘re-imagine our calling’, to reimagine how we in our communities are called and can respond to the ever beckoning Spirit of God.

‘Jesus ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father…All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer.’ Acts 1

DAY 9: May 26th


John 2.1-11 <http://goo.gl/tvErX>

Generosity – ‘Six stone water-jars, each holding twenty or thirty gallons, had become wine’.

‘Wedding at Cana’, Mattia PRETI (17^th c.): http://goo.gl/v65VN

This is a visual journey, leading the eye around a chain of people through which the story of the Wedding at Cana is told. The focus is on the connections between the persons in the story: someone turns to Mary to say that the wine has run out, Mary turns to Jesus, who turns to the servants, who go to the wine steward and pour him a glass drawn from the ceremonial jug filled with water before it’s taken to the groom. The bride looks on. The other disciples and guests sitting at the table complete the chain. Jesus, curiously, is not the centre of attention in the painting. We see him almost in shadows, extending an arm, with which he seems to direct the flow of wine pouring from the vessel. The impact of the red vestment reinforces the fact that the focus is on the flow of wine. This scene records the beginning of Jesus’ life in public ministry. But in his beginning is his end: Jesus will end life with arms outstretched, from which will flow his blood for the redemption of humanity. (The dog in the picture, following an ancient tradition, represents human sinfulness.) But life made new, Resurrection life flowing out from the Church will be the mark that Jesus is actively present among us.

DAY 8: May 25th


Mark 6.31-44 <http://goo.gl/lImsZ>

Feeding – ‘Every one ate and were satisfied’.

Church of the Loaves and Fishes, Tabgha, Sea of Galilee (5^th c.): http://goo.gl/00T4d

A 4^th century pilgrim noted that ‘not far from Capernaum, facing the Sea of Galilee is a well watered land in which lush grasses grow, where Jesus fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish’. Tradition says that the mosaic of the fish and loaves was set next to a large rock where Jesus stood to bless the meal which he and his disciples fed to the multitudes. There is no way to verify this, of course, but that such a story exists says something about the tangible, experiential ways in which faith is communicated from one generation to the next. Someone thought it important to commemorate Jesus’ miraculous meal, and they did so with a rock, then an artistic mosaic, and eventually a church. Jesus fed thousands in his day, and this church feeds a faith made visible to the thousands who visit each day.

DAY 7: May 24th


Luke 24:13-32 <http://goo.gl/3DA5C>

Transforming – ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road’.

‘The Road to Emmaus’, DUCCIO di Buoninsegna (14^th c.): http://goo.gl/n9pa7

Duccio (c. 1255 – c. 1318) draws upon the austere tradition of icon figures to depict the story of the two disciples who meet the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus.  Approaching the end of the day’s journey, they invite Jesus, dressed in pilgrim’s garb, to stay with them. While one disciple glances mournfully up at the stranger, the other gestures confidently towards the building where they will have their meal. Although full of human expectation, they are unaware of how special the unfolding situation will become. Jesus’s expression is different: thoughtful, profoundly calm, perhaps even a bit tentative: there is no sense of triumphalism here. Someone said that the city of God is not made or conquered, but reached in pilgrimage. Jesus, with hat tied around his shoulders and staff in hand, the fellow pilgrim on the road, joins the disciples, but will continue on his way, because this pilgrim is the Way. 

DAY 6: May 23rd


Luke 15:11-32<http://goo.gl/LG8yT>

Searching – ‘His father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him.’

‘The Return of the Prodigal son’, REMBRANDT van Rijn (17^th c.):http://goo.gl/nIV5Z

Letting go of a loved one is never easy, but how much harder to welcome back and embrace once again a son who has so hurt his father? Yet in his treatment of the biblical parable, Rembrandt (1606-1669) has no time for regrets or to count the cost of mending broken family relationships. His focus is directly on the unqualified embrace of the father for the runaway, long-lost son now found. Outstretched arms and hands enfold the penitent son, bringing him to himself, his left ear cupped to the father’s heart, should there be any doubt about the total abandon of this father’s pardon. All is forgiven; nothing forgotten, but everything which so transgressed an unconditional fatherly love is in this painting transformed into the makings of a new life – rags will be exchanged for a crimson robe – even while an older brother and servants look on in utter disbelief. Could God’s love for humanity be so great as to search even among those given up for dead for signs of life begging for the embrace of Life paid for with Christ’s blood?

DAY 5: May 22nd


Matthew 25.31-46 < http://goo.gl/BlAJw>

Caring – ‘Whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me’.

Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy (6^th c.): http://goo.gl/otMCy

Unknown artist (6^th century) The moment of judgement has arrived, and in this striking mosaic from Ravenna, we see the risen, glorified Christ flanked by angels, beginning the process of separating the righteous from the unrighteous “like a shepherd separating the sheep from the goats.” The gestures of the angels signal the profound seriousness of what is taking place. Jesus calmly gestures to his right, suggesting the choice which we onlookers should make. All is clear and made visible here: there is no ambiguity about what is going on, no place to hide from the truth. 

DAY 4: May 21st


Luke 10:38-41 < http://goo.gl/8qPLE>

Welcoming – ‘Martha welcomed him into her home’.

‘Christ in the House of Mary and Martha’, Jan VERMEER (17^th c.): http://goo.gl/OfKfF

Vermeer (1632-1675) creates a beautifully balanced and peaceful scene in which Mary sits thoughtfully at Jesus’ feet while Martha serves at the table. Vermeer’s use of triangle shapes and series of threes (three heads, three sets of hands) gives this work its strength and clarity. Jesus’ rebuke is gentle, shown through the gesture of one hand, and the turning of his face towards Martha. Both sisters are encompassed by his presence. Martha responds perhaps with surprise but not anger. As viewers and readers of the Gospel, we know that their friendship will be tested soon, as Jesus takes the road to Calvary. But not yet. In this composition, the three friends are knit closely together by a moment that for most of us recalls the ordinary experience of family life.

DAY 3: May 20th
Luke 1: 26-38 <http://goo.gl/DiJAE>

Receiving – ‘Here am I, …let it be with me according to your word’.

‘The Annunciation’, Fra ANGELICO (15^th c.): http://goo.gl/8wJ3Z

Fra Angelico (c.1387 or 1400? – 1455) paints a gloriously-winged angel Gabriel appearing to Mary in her colonnaded garden chamber. The angel bends and bows courteously to her, lowering himself so that he looks up to her. She returns his courtesy but her thoughtful expression shows her weighing up the enormity of his message. In the background, a small window suggests the presence of God the Father even as Mary, with arms folded over her breast, awaits the coming of his Word incarnate.