An excellent prayer I came across

IMHO, this is an excellent prayer that I came across today (this coming Sunday is Ascension Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary and most Lectionaries). For those of you with a short attention span or not interested in the whole thing (it is long), skip down and start at the third paragraph.



Ascended Lord Jesus, help us to turn our thoughts toward you. We confess to you this Ascension Day that we so often fail to take you into account. Sometimes we do not set our minds upon you because of sheer laziness-it's easier just to go with society's flow. Sometimes we do not take you into account because of simple inattention-we just forget to look for ways in which we could serve your gospel in a given situation. At other times we have not turned toward you because we have actively and willfully decided to turn away from you.

When and where we fail to be transparent to your cosmic lordship, please forgive us. By your Spirit of Pentecost, sent to us precisely because you are reigning on high, help us to see this world the way you see it. From your exalted throne you are able to see us and this world and its many hurting people clearly and well. Help us to open our own eyes. Grant us vision and insight to view the people around us through the lens of your own compassion.

Sometimes, O God, we conceive of your lordship as regal, powerful, and perhaps a bit distant. We think your sovereign rule involves mostly quashing evil, pursuing justice, and judging sin. Remind us by your Spirit that your lordship is also about being close to people in need. Prod us to recall that in your kingdom, rulership comes through servanthood and that the hands that uphold our world are the pierced and tender hands of Jesus. Help us to remember (so that we may imitate this ourselves) that you see not just evil that needs judging but also suffering that needs ministry.

For you, O Lord, see the tears of the widowed, the sobs that overtake them when the rest of us are not looking. You see the disorientation in which so many people live every day-confusion borne of war, poverty, abuse, or chronic illness. You see the people in dead-end jobs who trudge to work every day filled with so much despair that they can hardly breathe. You see those who search a loved one’s eyes for traces of love but find only an empty stare. As Lord of the earth, you spy every instance of one person cutting another to the quick, every place where a child lives in fear, every bar where someone tries to drown their sorrows.

 

(continued)


Yet you are our world’s every hope. You are tender enough to weep with those who weep and yet strong enough to lend comfort and not be consumed with the sorrows that overwhelm us. You are discerning enough to see where our lives run off the rails and yet gracious enough to forgive our foolishness and open again the better path that leads into your kingdom. You are the bright center to all of life, O God! Your lordship helps us glimpse our future with you in your kingdom, even as it points the way home.

Make us into people of the ascension, Christ Jesus! Make us your hands of mercy, your voice of grace, your presence of love. Whatever we do, whether in word or deed: whatever we see, whether sinful or salacious; whatever we hear, whether uplifting or depressing; whatever we face in this world, help us to face it in your power and with the knowledge of your grace and goodness. Help us to be gentle with prodigal children. Help us to be stalwart in the truth with people in love with lies. Help us to be radiant with hope with people who fear death. Help us to be your people, Lord God.

For today, as always, this world needs your shalom-filled presence. Bring peace to war-torn places and help people everywhere to see in one another your image. May those who delight in the paths of suicide and destruction be turned instead to delight in life and in mutual flourishing. End the terror in which so many live, and thwart the dreams of those who plot still more terror on the unsuspecting. where there is hunger, bring bread; where there is drought and thirst, send refreshing rains; where there is hatred, bring your peace; where there is greed, bring your own fullness and so turn appetites run amok away from short-term pleasures toward things that last and that foster richness and plenty for all.

We are the people of your ascension and reign, Holy Christ of God. Whatever we do, help us never to forget who we are, whose we are, and where true joy may be found.

In the power and blessing of your name we pray. Amen.
-reprinted by permission from The Worship Sourcebook, © 2004, CRC Publications

 

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Thanks for sharing that.

 

Got it.

 

Jeezy Creezy, thats about as long as the Rosary.

 

That is beautiful & wonderful. I'm saving it to refer to again & again. Thanks for sharing it.

 

as long as it is thats the birth prayer and the last rites

 

Do you scream this part?

 

Do you have to remember that by heart or can you read it off cheat-notes?

 

Got one for the Jews?