Prayers & Poems

A CLC Opening Prayer

The leader begins each meeting by having someone light a candle and then reading the following prayerfully.

Jesus said,

“I am the light of the world…

Whoever follows me will have the light of life

and will never walk in darkness.” -JOHN 8:12

Lord Jesus, you also said

that where two or three come together in your name, you are there with them.

The light of this candle

symbolizes your presence among us.

And, Lord Jesus,

where you are, there, too,

are the Father and the Holy Spirit.

So we begin our meeting

in the presence and the name

of the Father, the Son

and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A CLC Closing Prayer

The leader ends each weekly meeting by reading the following prayerfully

We conclude our meeting by listening to Jesus say to us what he said to his disciples

in his Sermon on the Mount:

“You are like the light for the whole world.

A city built on a hill cannot be hid.

No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl;

instead he puts it on a lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house.

In the same way your light must shine before the people, so that they will see the good things you do

and praise your Father in the heaven.” -MATTHEW 5:14-16

A member extinguishes the candle.

Then the leader continues:

The light of this candle is now extinguished.

But the light of Christ in each of us must continue to shine in our lives. Toward this end we pray together the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father …”

A Future Not Our Own

by Archbishop Oscar Romero

It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection.

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the church's mission.

No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about:

We plant seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something,

and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,

but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders,

ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

Apology to My Brothers and Sisters in Developing Countries

by Joyce Rupp (from Out of the Ordinary)

To my brothers and sisters in developing countries:

While I was deciding which oat bran cereal to eat this morning, you were searching the ground for leftover grains from the passing wheat truck.

While I was jogging at the health center, you were working in the wealthy landowner’s field under a scorching sun.

While I was choosing between diet and regular soda, your parched lips were yearning for a sip of clean water.

While I complained about the poor service in the gourmet restaurant, you were gratefully eating a bowl of rice.

While I poured “fresh and better” detergent into the washing machine, you stood in the river with your bundle of clothes.

While I watched the evening news on my wide-screen television set, you were being terrorized and taunted by a dictatorial government.

While I read the newspaper and drank my cup of steaming coffee, you walked the long, dusty miles to a crowded schoolroom to learn how to read.

While I scanned the ads for a bargain on an extra piece of clothing, you woke up and put on the same shirt and pants that you have worn for many months.

While I built a fourteen-room house for the three of us, your family of ten found shelter in a one-room hut.

While I went to Church last Sunday and felt more than slightly bored, you stood on the land with those around you and felt gratitude to God for being alive for one more day.

My brothers and sisters, forgive me for my arrogance and my indifference. Forgive me for my greed of always wanting newer, bigger, and better things. Forgive me for not doing my part to change the unjust systems that keep you suffering and impoverished. I offer you my promise to become more aware of your situation and to change my lifestyle as I work for the transformation of our world.

Desire to Help in the World

by Donald Neary, SJ

Lord,

The film I just saw was about the miseries and injustices of the world;

The headlines in the newspapers report violence, murder, and death:

And I think of other particular suffering around us:

Thousands of children sick in India,

Death and loneliness in Belfast,

Drug-addicts exploited by pushers,

Kids hooked on glue,

Ignorance through lack of education,

Sickness through lack of medical care,

Death on the streets.

Lord, how can I respond to the cries of your people?

I think of the less-known sufferings:

The anxieties and depressions of lonely men and women;

Of those who attempt suicide;

Of those who drown their cares in over-indulgence in alcohol.

What can I do to help?

I want to, Lord,

I want my life to be a channel of your love to them;

But that can one man, one woman, do?

Help me, Lord, to believe that I can help,

And give me the courage and generosity to offer myself in service,

That my life might be like a candle, giving light to others.

Fall in Love

attributed to Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J.

Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than

falling in Love

in a quite absolute, final way.

What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.

It will decide

what will get you out of bed in the morning,

what you do with your evenings,

how you spend your weekends,

what you read,

whom you know,

what breaks your heart,

and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Fall in Love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.

Live Your Best Life

by Algernon Black

This is a call to the living,

To those who refuse to make peace with evil,

With the suffering and the waste of the world.

This is a call to the human, not the perfect.

To those who know their own prejudices,

Who have no intention of becoming prisoners of their own limitations.

This is a call to those who remember the dreams of their youth, who know what it means to share food and shelter,

The care of children and those who are troubled, to reach beyond barriers of the past

Bringing people to communion.

This is a call to the never ending spirit

Of the common man, his essential decency and integrity, his unending capacity to suffer and endure, to face death and destruction and to rise again and build from the ruins of life.

This is the greatest call of all

The call to a faith in people.

Patient Trust

by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything

to reach the end without delay.

We would like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something

unknown, something new.

And yet, it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through

some stages of instability -

and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;

your ideas mature gradually -

let them grow,

let them shape themselves, without undue haste.

Don't try to force them on,

as though you could be today what time,

(that is to say, grace and circumstances

acting on your own good will)

will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming in you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete.

Prayer for Generosity

by St. Ignatius of Loyola

Lord, teach me to be generous.

Teach me to serve you as you deserve;

to give and not to count the cost,

to fight and not to heed the wounds,

to toil and not to seek for rest,

to labor and not to ask for reward,

save that of knowing that I do your will.

Prayer of Gratitude

by Joyce Rupp (from May I Have This Dance)

We are grateful for eyes that can see and ponder, for taste buds that know the sensuous pleasures of eating and drinking, for hands that hold and touch and feel, for ears that can delight in music and the voice of a friend, for a nose that can smell the aroma of newly mown grass or delicious food, and can also breathe the air that gives us life.

We are grateful for the treasure of loved ones whose hearts of openness and acceptance has encouraged us to be who we are. We are grateful for their faithfulness, for standing by us when our weaknesses stood out glaringly, for being there when we were most in need and for delighting with us in our good days and our joyful seasons.

We are grateful for the eyes of faith, for believing in the presence of God, giving us hope in our darkest days, encouraging us to listen to our spirit’s hunger, and reminding us to trust in the blessings of God's presence in our most empty days.

We are grateful for the ongoing process of becoming who we are, for the seasons within, for the great adventure of life that challenges and comforts us at one and the same time.

We are grateful for the messengers of God ‑ people, events, written or spoken words ‑ that came to us at just the right time and helped us to grow.

We are grateful for God calling us to work with our gifts, grateful that we can be of service and use our talents in a responsible and just way.

We are grateful that we have the basic necessities of life, that we have the means and the ability to hear the cries of the poor and to respond with our abundance.

We are grateful for the miracle of life, for the green o our earth, for the amazing grace of our history; we are grateful that we still have time to decide the fate of the world by our choices and our actions, grateful that we have it within our power to bring a divided world to peace.

Suscipe

by St. Ignatius of Loyola

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,

my memory, my understanding

and my entire will,

All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.

To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will.

Give me only your love and your grace.

That is enough for me.

The First Principle and Foundation

by St. Ignatius of Loyola, as paraphrased by David L. Fleming, S.J.

The goal of our life is to live with God forever.

God, who loves us, gave us life.

Our own response of love allows God's life

to flow into us without limit.

All the things in this world are gifts from God,

Presented to us so that we can know God more easily and make a return of love more readily.

As a result, we appreciate and use all these gifts of God insofar as they help us to develop as loving persons. But if any of these gifts become the center of our lives, they displace God

and so hinder our growth toward our goal.

In everyday life, then, we must hold ourselves in balance before all of these created gifts insofar as we have a choice and are not bound by some obligation.

We should not fix our desires on health or sickness, wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or a short one.

For everything has the potential of calling forth in us a deeper response to our life in God.

Our only desire and our one choice should be this: I want and I choose what better leads

to God's deepening his life in me.

The Person Across from You

author unknown

The person across from you is the greatest miracle and the greatest mystery in this moment- a testament of God’s continuing creation and presence in the world.

The person across from you is an inexhaustible reservoir of possibility, with potentialities only partially realized.

The person across from you is a unique universe of experience- of possibility and necessity, laughter and tears, love and indifference, hopes and fears- all struggling for expression.

The person across from you believes in something- something precious; stands for something, lives for something, labors for something, waits for something, runs for something, runs towards something.

The person across from you is not perfect- often feels disappointed, is often undecided and disorganized and woefully close to chaos; but is endowed with a tremendous inner strength, and is capable of surviving great difficulties and persecutions.

The person across from you is a community of persons- persons met during a lifetime. Each carries with them a mother and father, student and teacher, brother and sister, enemy and friend.

The person across from you does some things like no one else in the world.

There is something this one life on earth means and cares for- will that person dare speak of it to you?

The person across from you is more description than explanation. The person across from you is MYSTERY made in God’s image, never to be fully understood.

Look before you, and within you- look around- for God is indeed among us!

Where am I Going?

by 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 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 you will never leave me to face my perils alone.