Prayer....

These words are from an old book on the mass... but it speaks my heart tonight. Will you join me in praying for the nations, for our Church? I pray these words touch your heart as they did mine. May they echo in your spirit as you read them:


Lord, it is not for myself alone I now do pray,
for selfish prayer is scarce a prayer at all;
But for all these, Your people, seen and unseen,
for those who bear Your blessed Sign, for these I pray;

Nor do I now forget those others who know You not,
or who, knowing, have forsaken Your way:
For we are one in You.

With all these, then, I join in that appointed invocation
which Your church does place upon our lips today;
For to each day is given its own singular fashion
wherewith to praise You and to pray to You;
That praying thus our lasting wish may come to be
And we may grasp that which alone abides.

From an undivided heart, and in child-like spirit,
To all these prayers I do myself unite,
As Your church in due humility does now pour out
inwords of plain and forceful sense,
Humanity's fear of oppression, famine, evil deeds,
and its need of the dew of Your Love.

Thus guided by the saints whom we do now recall,
Be they close or distant, familiar or scarce known,
I join the age-long cloud of witnesses
in ranks unbroken and unceasing,
While with these lips You've given me, I frame the Church's prayer
And strive to reach the foot of Your Eternal Throne.


סלה
Psalm 84