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A good segue from Psalm 139

Director’s Reflection

Director’s Reflection

Dear Companions on the Journey,

Last Sunday’s homily about praying with persistence without growing weary drew more comments than usual.  One of my homily reflections came from always-worthwhile Anne Lamott, this time from her Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers.  Towards the end of her book, Lamott quotes short story writer Raymond Carver’s poem “Fragments”:

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

This is a good segue from Psalm 139 and Charles K. Robinson’s prayer inspired by that psalm which I included in last week’s column. 

Here’s another prayer I like, this one by Ted Loder from his Guerrillas of Grace:

O God, complete the work you have begun in me.

Release through me

A flow of mercy and gentleness that will bring

water where there is desert,
healing where there is hurt,
peace where there is violence,
beauty where there is ugliness,
justice where there is brokenness,
beginning where there are dead-ends.

Waken in me

gratitude for my life
love for every living thing,
joy in what is human and holy,
praise for you.

Renew my faith that you are God

Beyond my grasp but within my reach;
Past my knowing but within my searching;
Disturber of the assured, assurer of the disturbed;
Destroyer of illusions, creator of dreams;
Source of silence and music, sex and solitude, light and darkness, death and life.

O keeper of Promises, composer of grace,

Grant me glee in my blood, prayer in my heart, trust at my core, sense for my journey, and sense of your kingdom.

What do you think?

And let us pray for/with one another.
Michael
The Paulist Center