Poverty | Riches

Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

(Collect of the day during Epiphany, Common Worship)

Common Worship Daily Prayer is a wonderfully rich resource for spiritual formation, if we are willing to embrace the grace held out to us. This season of Epiphany (which happens to coincide with a season of global economic recession) I find myself gripped by these words, the daily collect, and in particular the line

transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace…

And as they grip me, demand my attention, pull me back when I would allow myself to be distracted by so many other things, I dare to believe that the Holy Spirit is at work, breathing life into them, into me through them…making these external words the internal prayer of my own heart, so as to delight in answering
the longing of an ungenerous spirit
to become
gracious.