Prayer on Good Friday

We just prayed this at our Good Friday service here at St. Mary Magdalene, and it had a particular poingancy for me:

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light,
look favourably on your whole Church,
that wonderful and sacred mystery.
By the effectual working of your providence,
carry out in tranquillity the plan of salvation.
Let the whole world see and know
that things which were cast down are being raised up,
and things which had grown old are being made new,
and that all things are being brought to their perfection
by him through whom all things were made,
your Son Jesus Christ our Lord;
who lives and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Our church, the Anglican Communion and the Anglican Church of Canada, is certainly a wonderful and sacred mystery - the mystery to me, so often, is how God might actually work through us in our deeply evident sin and falleness. Will our conflicts never end?

But we don't pray for the end of conflict, though we know that they will come to an end on the last day, through God's mercy. For now we pray for the effectual working of God's providence, and that he carry out the plan of salvation. That our messed up church may somehow be a part of God's effectual providence, that God is bringing all things to perfection despite, or through, but most likely because, of our self-evident inabilities: this is a good word to a broken church indeed.