Don’t stop now. You have completed A Feast of Weeks, but this is an exercise meant to be repeated. You have been introduced to the prayers and exercises, but you can only go deeper with repetition. Morning and evening prayer is like reading the Bible. Every time you go through it, you hear and experience something new. This is simply a means for God to speak to you, and for you to speak to God. This is a tool for you to work with, a platform upon which you can build, a variety of colors with which you can paint the essence of your life with God. Repetition is the only way to go deeper. It is like a first date with someone to whom you are attracted. Only with many more dates can your relationship with this person develop, grow deeper in meaning, and develop into full-blown love. Morning and evening prayer is like a date with God every morning and evening. What will God say to you on your next date? What will you say to God? What new thing will you learn about God, about yourself? You are attracted to each other, but only by continuing to spend time together can you develop the relationship to each other. Only time and togetherness will let your relationship develop into a full and mature love. Compare a first date’s experience with a couple who have experienced fifty years of married life together. Then consider how fifty years of meeting with God every morning and evening can build your relationship together.
The changing scripture lessons and the moments when you pray your own prayers will add enough variety to keep your prayer-time fresh for a long while. Listed below are other ideas for adding even more variety to your feast. In any case, you can use A Feast of Weeks to guide you through your morning and evening prayers as long as it remains useful for you and God to meet together in this way.
Another eight weeks of morning and evening prayer will be added to this site in the coming months. It is being written now. Already available on this site's resources is A Feast of Holy Days. This work uses the same pattern of A Feast of Weeks, but these prayers are for the special days of the Christian year (for example: The Sundays of Advent, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Epiphany Day). Just wait until a special day comes along ,and then substitute these prayers, songs and scripture readings for those in A Feast of Weeks.
More Variations You Might Want to Explore
Change the hymns by working your way through your denominational hymnal or another favorite hymnal.
Change the hymns by replacing them with all of your favorite choruses.
Change the hymns to include only hymns or choruses with language addressed to God as a way to make them more prayerful. For example, "Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty" (hymn 64) is addressed to God, but "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" (hymn 110) is about God but addressed to people, more like an affirmation.
Read the scriptures that were used to set the theme for the day as your Scripture lesson. These are listed at the beginning of each day’s liturgy.
Alter the Scripture lesson by reading through the whole Bible.
Alter the Scripture lesson by choosing a book of the Bible and reading through it. Then choose another book of the Bible, and so on.
Alter the Scripture lesson by reading the lessons listed in the Common Lectionary. This can be found in numerous denominational sources. There are also daily lectionaries available, with some on the internet.
Alter the Scripture lesson by letting your Bible fall open, and reading whatever opens to you.
Sing a doxology, or another musical response of your choosing, after all the Scripture lessons.
Learn one of the several ways to chant the psalms, and begin doing this each day.
Alter the psalms by reading through the entire book of Psalms.
Read through the psalms that were not included in “A Feast of Weeks.” These are: Psalm 3, 5, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 26, 28, 35, 39, 41, 44, 45, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 69, 70, 71, 73, 76, 77, 79, 82, 83, 87, 88, 93, 101, 102, 108, 110, 114, 119:1-32, 119:41-88, 119:97-168, 123, 124, 127, 129, 137, 138, 141, 142, 143, and 144.
Find a book, or an internet source, to locate some of the great prayers of the church over the last two millennia. Then use these to replace the main written prayer in “A Feast of Weeks.”
Use part of your prayer time to write replacements for the main written prayers. Try to write prayers with depth, and prayers that will both encourage and challenge you to grow spiritually.
Change the list of “concerns of people” to be prayed for in the mornings by introducing new topics.
Expand your personal prayer list, and spend more time with this in the evenings. You can add this to your morning prayers as well.
Use part of your prayer time to write replacements for the greetings and closing prayers.
Use part of your prayer time to write new faith affirmations for use in Sunday prayer times.
Include a written prayer of confession and assurance of pardon. This would be especially appropriate during the seasons of preparation, Advent and Lent.
Include a devotional from something like “The Upper Room,” “My Daily Bread,” or the many devotional books, as well as what is available on the Internet.
Include reading a sermon from one of the many books of sermons or from sermon sites on the Internet.
Include a sermon recorded from some broadcasting service where a pastor is preaching.
If you have been using “A Feast of Weeks” in solitude; then find one or more other people to share this time with you. Or, if you have been using “A Feast of Weeks” with others; then try using it in solitude for a while.
Covenant with some other people to do “A Feast of Weeks” at the same time of day each day, but each praying it in solitude in separate locations. This could be especially meaningful to people who want to share morning and evening prayers but are separated by long distances.
Covenant with some other people to do a conference call on the phone or internet, or use Skype, Zoom or other software to do a long-distance sharing of morning and evening prayer.
Add a quiet time for reflection as you do some type of art work. This could be drawing, painting, dancing, a stitchery project, pottery-making, writing, sculpting or any kind of artistic endeavor you enjoy. The art could give expression to an idea, feeling or commitment that arose from your time in morning or evening prayer.
Set “A Feast of Weeks” aside for awhile. Use some other guide for your morning and evening prayer. Then go back to using “A Feast of Weeks.”
Make other changes, additions or deletions as the Spirit guides you. This time is for you and God to enjoy together.
