Thought for the week by Alan Crowle
Friends
Prayer for the Day is a religious radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in the United Kingdom. It comprises a 2-minute reading or prayer and reflection to start the day. Since 1998 it has been broadcast each day between 5.43 and 5.45. a.m. before Farming Today. Luke 11 vv 111 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray.’
The practice of prayer and contemplation lights up our lives, bringing serenity, insight and hope. For many years the much-loved BBC Radio 4 series Prayer for the Day has done just that, inspiring listeners with its dawn broadcast of spiritual wisdom.
Thought for the Day is a daily scripted slot on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 offering "reflections from a faith perspective on issues and people in the news", broadcast at around 7:45 each Monday to Saturday morning. Lasting 2 minutes and 45 seconds. The feature is mainly delivered by those involved in religious practice; often, these are Christian thinkers.
Thought for the Day contributions often follow a similar format: starting with a contemporary issue of public interest or concern, possibly drawn from the news, or from sport, the arts, science or some other area of public life as a lead-in to a spiritual or religious reflection. The contributor uses the theological content to comment on the issue in question. The contributor moves from the contemporary topical issue to the theological issue in a way that inspires reflection but does not try to give a moral or message about the original issue.
Some Thought for the Day contributions can be more explicitly evangelistic while others are more personal, and others have been positively inter-religious with contributors praising faiths different from their own. Rev Lord Leslie Griffiths, a Christian Methodist contributor to the programme described his view of the role of faith in contributing to Thought for the Day as follows: "I'm a Christian and the essence of my Christianity gives me the angle from which I want to reflect, but it is the lens rather than the subject itself. I don’t want to talk about Christianity, I want as a Christian to talk about the news". Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, unuttered or expressed. Prayer is the burden of a sigh, the falling of a tear. Prayer is the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try. Prayer is the contrite sinners' voice, returning from their way. Prayer is the Christians' vital breath, the Christians' native air.
A Prayer: Eternal Spirit, Life-Giver, Pain-bearer, Source of all that is and that shall be, Parent of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven: the Hallowing of your Name echo through the universe. The Way of your Justice be followed by the people of the world. Your Heavenly Will be done by all created beings. Your commonwealth of Peace and Freedom sustain our hope and come on earth. With the bread we need for today feed us. In the hurts we absorb from one another forgive us. In times of temptation and test, strengthen us. From trials too sharp to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that is evil. free us. For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and for ever. Amen.
God Bless,
Alan