Amazed . . .

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

 

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

 

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

 

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

 

~ e.e. cummings ~

Whispers of the Universe . . .

 

The Spirit of God is Always with Us at This Time, in This Place

We awaken in our time to a Universe which is holy,
to creation which is not an event in the past, but a living event of the present.
We enter a new mode of human presence where we are not merely observers,
but where each of us is a participant in this moment of evolution.

Like all other creatures, we carry with us Wisdom and Values, the dynamics of the Universe.
But unlike other creatures, we must choose whether and how we will live in harmony
within this sacred web of creation.
May we be open to the Source of All Being, Our God within and among us!

We have the capacity to wonder,
and to celebrate this great mystery of existence within such a magnificent Universe!
In us the Universe enters into a great celebration of itself.
We are part of the Dance, the Great Work, the Great liturgy which is the Universe unfolding.

Glory to You, O God, Source of All Being!
This great Liturgy finds expression at this moment in us,
gathered here in a posture of prayerful openness, with listening hearts, loving spirits and a holy wonder.
May the sacred web that unites us with each other, our God and all creation,
ignite communities of light and hope throughout the Earth.
May we be open to the Source of All Being, Our God within and among us!

Together We Pray:
O Gracious, gentle Spirit of Love,
Your energy permeates the Universe,
Igniting Earth with
Your Goodness, Truth and Beauty.
Open our minds and hearts
To a deeper awareness
Of our interconnectedness with You,
Each other and all creation.
May we experience
Your unique presence
Within the sacred web of creation.

- Author Unknown

August 3, 2025: Grace Mariette Agolia Preaches for the 18th Sunday in Or...

A Spiritual Exercise . . .

 

A Prayer

 

You keep us waiting.

You, the God of all time,

Want us to wait for the right time

in which to discover

Who we are, where we must go,

Who will be with us, and what we must do.

So, thank you . . . for waiting time.

 

You keep us looking.

You, the God of all space,

Want us to look in the right and wrong places

for signs of hope,

For people who are hopeless,

For visions of a better world

that will appear among the disappointments

of the world we know.

So, thank you . . . for the looking time.

 

You keep us loving.

You, the God whose name is Love,

Want us to be like you –

To love the loveless and the unlovely and the unlovable;

To love without jealousy or design or threat,

And most difficult of all, to love ourselves.

So, thank you . . . for loving time.

 

And in all this you keep us,

Through hard questions with no easy answers;

Through falling where we hoped to succeed

and making an impact when we felt useless;

Through the patience and the dreams

and the love of others;

And through Jesus Christ and his Spirit, you keep us.

(By Lisa Terneus of the Iona Community in Scotland)

 

 

God of Presence . . .

 

Seeing God

We cannot see you

and yet in so many ways we have seen you,

 

We cannot touch you

but we have experienced and felt you.

 

You have been in the full moon

and the early morning mist,

the bright blue sky

and the cool night air

after a scorching day.

 

You are the rock

that anchors us in uncertain times,

 

You are the hope

that keeps us going on a road with few signposts,

 

You are the presence

when we feel disoriented and estranged.

 

You are the compassion

that knits us even to strangers,

 

You are the justice

that tugs at our complacency,

 

You are the joy

that unexpectedly overwhelms us,

 

You are the love

that banishes all fear.

 

We praise you for revealing yourself to us

in all these ways -

and for Christ, your full revelation.

 

~ Suellen Shay

Prayer of Thomas Merton . . .

 

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact

please you.  And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.  I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.  And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.  Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and will never

leave me to face my perils alone.

(Thoughts in Solitude)

A Quieting Prayer . . .

 

I weave a silence on my lips,
I weave a silence into my mind,
I weave a silence within my heart.

I close my ears to distractions,
I close my eyes to attentions,
I close my heart to temptations.

Calm me, O God, as you stilled the storm,
Still me, O God, keep me from harm.
Let all the tumult within me cease,
Enfold me, God, in your peace.
(Author Unknown ~ Celtic Tradition)

 

Prayer of Transformation . . .

 

 

Prayer: Litany of God's Names by Joseph Sobb, S.J.

O God of silence and quietness, you call us to be still and know you -

O God of steadfast love, your Spirit is poured into our hearts –

O God of compassion, your Word is our light and hope –

O God of faithfulness, you fill our hearts with joy –

O God of life and truth, from you we receive every gift –

O God of healing and peace, you open us to divine grace –

O God of all creation, our beginning and our end –

O God of salvation, you reconcile all things in Jesus, your son -

O God of Jesus, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit –

O God of Jesus, who invites us, “Come and see” –

O God of Jesus, who was tempted as we all are –

O God of Jesus, who is like us in all things except sin –

O God of Jesus, who is your pledge of saving love –

O God of Sarah and Abraham, from whom came Jesus, your Son –

O God of Anna and Simeon, who recognized Jesus, your Son, as Messiah –

O God of Mary, who bore Jesus, your Son –

O God of Joseph, to whose fatherly care was entrusted Jesus, your Son –

O God of all generations, of all times and seasons and peoples –

O God of our mothers and fathers, of all who have loved us –

O God of our past; O God of our future –

O God of our present, O God in our present -

 

July 27, 2025: Sr. Theresa Hafner, CSJ preaches for the 17th Sunday in O...

July 20, 2025: Stacy Theresa Geere Preaches for the 16th Sunday in Ordin...

Mary Magdalene ~ Faith-filled Friend . . .

 

 Artist: Gheorghe Tattarescu - Image Source Wikipedia

 

MARY MAGDALA’S EASTER PRAYER

(Posted by Ron Rolheiser, OMI)

I never suspected
            Resurrection
                        and to be so painful
                        to leave me weeping
With Joy
            to have met you, alive and smiling, outside an empty tomb
With Regret
            not because I’ve lost you
            but because I’ve lost you in how I had you –
                        in understandable, touchable, kissable, clingable flesh
                        not as fully Lord, but as graspably human.

I want to cling, despite your protest
            cling to your body
            cling to your, and my, clingable humanity
            cling to what we had, our past.

But I know that…if I cling
            you cannot ascend and
            I will be left clinging to your former self
            …unable to receive your present spirit.

Longing Prayer . . .

 

Prayer 

O God, help us to feel you;

Help us to know how precious we are to you,

that we might become at least half so precious to ourselves.

 

Move with us, according to your desire.

Ease our hearts, melt our harsh edges

so that we might sense how intimate you truly are.

Guide us, God in an ever more complete embrace of you,

that we might bear more of your endless embrace of us,

and thereby embrace ourselves.

 

Keep alive within us, O Christ, your most precious gift to us

which is our burning, longing, wordless yearning for you.

Grant to us the courage and the vulnerability and the dignity

to claim our hunger for you in every moment,

celebrating, in each instant the pain and delight of our longing.

 

Touch us beneath our will, opening us where we cannot open ourselves,

healing us where we cannot heal ourselves.

 

And, in the vibrant mystery of your Spirit within us,

accept our eternal gratitude for every act of goodness

that comes to us from another or through us for another,

for every nourishing way that souls may touch each other,

for every bit of love we share, and for the wonder,

the tender laughing touching calling beautiful wonder.

 

Gerald May

(Source Unknown)

A Blessing of Mystery . . .

 

Blessing That Undoes Us

On the day you are wearing

your certainty like a cloak

and your sureness goes before you

like a shield or like a sword,

 

may the sound of God’s name

spill from your lips as you have never

heard it before.

 

May your knowing be undone.

May mystery confound your

understanding.

 

May the Divine rain down

in strange syllables

yet with an ancient familiarity,

a knowing borne in the blood,

the ear, the tongue,

bringing the clarity that comes

not in stone

or in steel

but in fire, in flame.

 

May there come one searing word –

enough to bare you to the bone,

enough to set your heart ablaze,

enough to make you

whole again.

https://www.janrichardson.com/ By Jan Richardson, Circle of Grace

The Blessing of Waiting . . .

 

Image by R. M.

Blessing for Waiting

Who wait for the night to end.

bless them.

 

Who wait for the night to begin

bless them.

 

Who wait in the hospital room

who wait in the cell

who wait in prayer

bless them.

 

Who wait for news

who wait for the phone call

who wait for a word

who wait for a job - a house - a child

bless them.

 

Who wait for one who will come home..

who wait for one who

will not come home

bless them.

 

Who wait with fear

who wait with joy

who wait with peace

who wait with rage

who wait for the end

who wait for the beginning

who wait alone

who wait together

bless them.

 

Who wait without knowing

what they wait for or why

bless them.

 

Who wait when they

should not wait

who wait when they should

be in motion

who wait when they need to rise

who wait when they need to set out

bless them.

 

Who wait for the end of waiting

who wait for the fullness of time

who wait emptied and

open and ready

who wait for you,

O bless.

 

Jan Richardson

Circle of Grace

 

July 13, 2025: Meghan J. Clark Preaches for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary ...

A Quieting prayer . . .

 

To all that is chaotic in you

let there come silence.

Let there be
a calming
of the clamoring,
a stilling
of the voices that
have laid their claim
on you,
that have made their
home in you,

that go with you
even to the
holy places
but will not
let you rest,
will not let you
hear your life
with wholeness
or feel the grace
that fashioned you.

Let what distracts you
cease.
Let what divides you
cease.

Let there come an end

to what diminishes
and demeans,
and let depart
all that keeps you
in its cage.

Let there be
an opening
into the quiet
that lies beneath
the chaos,
where you find
the peace
you did not think
possible
and see what shimmers
within the storm.

~ Jan Richardson, 

paintedprayerbook.com   

https://www.janrichardson.com/

 

 

 God, help me today to realize that you will be speaking to me through the events of the day, through people, through things, and through all creation.  Give me ears, eyes and heart to perceive you, however veiled your presence may be.  Give me insight to see through the exterior things to the interior truth.  Give me your Spirit of discernment.  O God, you know how busy I must be this day. If I forget you, do not forget me.

Amen.

(Adapted from Jacob Astley quoted in “Hearing with the Heart” by Debra K. Farrington)

Wisdom prayer . . .

 

Prayer of St. Benedict

 

Gracious and holy God,

give me wisdom to perceive you,

diligence to seek you,

patience to wait for you,

eyes to behold you,

a heart to meditate upon you,

and a life to proclaim you;

through the power

of the Spirit

of Jesus Christ

our Savior.

Amen

Silent Whispers . . .

 

Give Me Your Hand

God speaks to each of us as we are made,

then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,

go to the limits of your longing.

Embody me.

Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and horror.

Just keep going.

No feeling is final.

Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.

You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

Rainer Maria Rilke

 

Urgent Prayer . . .

 

A prayer for times like these

For a world where lies are accepted at face value;

hear our prayer, God of truth.

For a world where racism in high places is tolerated;

hear our prayer, God of the oppressed.

For a world where people with disabilities are mocked;

hear our prayer, God of the disadvantaged.

For a world where the rich hold the reins of power;

hear our prayer, God of the poor.

For a world where men violate women with impunity;

hear our prayer, God of the downtrodden.

For a world where the earth is ignored and neglected;

hear our prayer, God of the voiceless.

For a world where nations interfere in enemies’ elections;

hear our prayer, God of the disenfranchised.

For a world where the church is charmed by false gods;

hear our prayer, God of the lost.

For a world where free speech is threatened;

hear our prayer, God of the silenced.

For a world where hatred is growing by leaps and bounds;

hear our prayer, God of the vulnerable.

For a world where dissent is dangerous and necessary,

hear our prayer, God of those who suffer for righteousness’ sake.

God of hope, we turn to you for vision and courage

as we strive to be faithful in word and deed,

followers of Christ in times like these.

"Copyright Carol Penner www.leadinginworship.com"

A Pondering for July 4!

On this weekend of the celebration of Independence Day, let us pray for all who walk this earth as we are interdependent in our way of life on this planet and that we may grow in our actions, attitudes, and way of being that we acknowledge we are here as a people sharing the gift of life in the beauty of God’s creation on this small planet in the universe.  May we be always inclusive and not separated in our embrace of our human family and all creation as we live and move and have our being!  In deep gratitude, let us pray!

For pondering:

The late Albert Einstein, during his declining years, granted a press conference to a number of newspaper reporters. After they had plied him with questions on many subjects, one reporter asked: ‘Mr. Einstein, would you care to make a prediction as to the kind of weapons that will be used in the third world war?’ Modestly he shook his head and said: ‘No, I would not venture a prediction.’ After the briefest hesitation he added, ‘But I’ll tell you what will be the chief weapon in the fourth world war.’ The reporters were all ears and every pencil was poised in anticipation of the old man’s prediction. What would be the chief weapon in the fourth world war?

With an air of finality, the old man gave a one-word reply – 'Clubs!' It took a moment or two for the aged scientist’s reply to register, but as it did, a grim silence settled over the assembled group. (Anonymous)