Amy Boucher Pye

Category: Prayer Exercise

  • A prayer to the Triune God

    Today in the church we celebrate Trinity Sunday, a day to mark the glorious mystery of the God who is Three-in-One (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). I love this Celtic prayer:

    I am bending my knee

    In the eye of the Father who created me,

    In the eye of the Son who purchased me,

    In the eye of the Spirit who cleansed me,

    In friendship and affection.

    Through Your own Anointed One, O God,

    Bestow upon us fullness in our need,

    Love towards God,

    The affection of God,

    The smile of God,

    The wisdom of God,

    The grace of God,

    The fear of God,

    And the will of God

    To do on the world of the Three,

    As angels and saints

    Do in heaven;

    Each shade and light,

    Each day and night,

    Each time in kindness,

    Give us Your Spirit.

    Carmina Gadelica I, pp. 2-3, as found in David Adam, The Path of Life: Meditations on prayers from the Celtic tradition (London: SPCK, 2009), pp. 23.

  • A Meditation on Love

    On this feast of Pentecost, I’m pondering love—the greatest of the gifts of the Spirit. Join me as we gaze on a little stream near Lee Bay in north Devon and pray through 1 Corinthians 13. Feel free to pause the recording as you encounter our living, loving God.

  • With Jesus in the upper room

    During this Easter season, I welcome you to join in imaginatively with Jesus in the upper room. There, after Jesus had died, the disciples hid in fear. But Jesus — the Risen Christ — appeared to them and gave them the Holy Spirit, breathing on them and sending them out to share his love.

    Join me with this imaginative prayer practice of entering the story from John 20:19–22. The images come from St Jerome’s cave in Bethlehem.

    Feel free to pause the video at any point as you ponder and reflect with God.

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  • “He is not here!” A reading of the Easter story at the Garden Tomb

    Happy Easter! Christ is risen!

    Here’s my husband, Nicholas, reading the Easter morning story at the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem from our January 2023 trip.

    Enjoy resurrection life!

    PS Join me on Premier Christian Radio on Wednesday morning at 11am to talk about living out a resurrection life…

  • A Prayer for Ash Wednesday

    Join me in this prayer from the Church of England as we begin with Lent, the 40 days of prayer, fasting, and giving as we prepare for Easter.

    Holy God,
    our lives are laid open before you:
    rescue us from the chaos of sin
    and through the death of your Son
    bring us healing and make us whole
    in Jesus Christ our Lord.
    Amen.

    Artwork by Leo Boucher; used with permission; all rights reserved.

  • Losing Ourselves to Find Ourselves

    Jesus said, “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39, NIV). But these feel like hard words – self-sacrifice for ultimate gain? How can we even embrace this invitation, even if we want to?

    It’s one of the upside-down truths of the kingdom of God that he gives us the ability to lose our lives and then to find them through his love. As Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, observed, When we look for God, he’ll sow during every moment of our lives, grains of his life that one day will spring up in a tremendous harvest.

    Join me on the shores of the south coast of England (near Milford-on-Sea) to pray through Jesus’ startling invitation to find ourselves when we lose ourselves in God. We’ll incorporate some of Merton’s insights from his book, New Seeds of Contemplation. Feel free to pause the video at any point as you ponder and reflect with God.

    These themes of losing ourselves to find ourselves are those I explore in my award-winning book, Still Finding Myself in Britain. Please consider joining in my through-the-year look at life in the UK as we engage with themes of faith, home, and identity.

  • Finding Peace in Uncertain Times

    The worries, cares, and uncertainties we face in life can crowd out our peace. But what if we’ve misunderstood what God means by peace? Join me in encountering God and receiving his peace and comfort in this mini-retreat, filmed at sunset by the shores of Lake Josephine in Roseville, Minnesota. In doing so we’ll prayerfully engage with Isaiah 61:1–3. As you focus on the God of peace, he will fill you with his peace.

    Do feel free to stop the video and pause in prayer to receive from God.

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  • Prayerful reading of John 1

    Join me for a mini-retreat, with time to pause, reflect on Scriputre, and experience God? Here’s my latest prayer practice (of 7 minutes) that I sent out with my monthly newsletter, perfect for this season of Advent.

    We’ll be engaging with some lectio divina (prayerful reading) of the first part of John’s gospel (John 1:1–5, 9, 14, NIV). During the Advent season, it’s beneficial and meaningful to ponder Jesus, the true light who has come into the world.

    Feel free to pause the video at any point as you ponder and reflect with God.

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  • Praying with Jane Austen

    Did you know that Jane Austen was a devoted Christian? We have access to three of her prayers – those when she led the family prayers at night. Join me at Jane’s home in Chawton, Hampshire, England, with an adaptation of one of her inspiring and uplifting prayers. The images are all from the grounds at her final beloved home, where she was able to be most fruitful in her writing.

    You can find the three prayers in their original form here.

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  • Journeying with Jesus during Holy Week

    As we approach Holy Week next week, the culmination of the season of Lent, we can be gentle to ourselves, however we’re feeling, whether tired, weary, hopeful, or perhaps wishing that we’d kept more rigorously to the practices we chose at the start. Whatever has gone before us, know that God welcomes us to journey with Jesus in the here and now. God’s loving invitation to deepen our faith during this holy week stands.

    One way to approach this week is to consider what Jesus experienced each day of his life that week. To help imagine what was happening at various moments, I invite you to download an outline of the events, which I’ve adapted from the NIV Application Commentary: Matthew by Michael J. Wilkins (Zondervan, 2004), pp. 709–10.

    I also invite you to join me on Tuesday for a half-hour of prayer via zoom as I lead an engagement with Jesus’ journey via Coracle’s Space for God. More information here.


    Lord Jesus Christ, as we enter into the events of this Holy Week, I come to you in humility, confessing my wrongdoing and receiving your forgiveness. May the events of this last week of your life be brought alive to me, that I might know you more intimately and be more grateful for your sacrifice, which gives me life. I join the crowds to shout out with joy, “Hosanna to the King of kings! Blessed are you who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

    Subscribers to my newsletter received this free resource before Holy Week last year. I welcome you to join the newsletter community!