commissioning

Eternal God,
   to whom the hidden is as clearly known as the visible:
before you your people bow their heads,
   to you they submit their hard hearts and unruly bodies.
Send down blessing from your glorious dwelling
   on these men and women,
   lend them a ready ear and answer their prayers.
Set them up firmly with your strong hand
   and protect them against all evil passions.
Preserve their bodies and souls,
   increase their faith and fear and increase ours,
   through your only Son.

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On the Father and the Son

As long as I live and breathe the breath you have given me,
  holy Father, all-powerful God,
I will acknowledge that from all eternity
  you have been not only God but Father.
I will never have the folly and impiety
  to set up as judge of your omnipotence and your mysteries,
  to prefer my own poor thought
  to what religion holds
  about your infinity
  or faith teaches about your eternity.
I will never assert that there was a time
  when your Wisdom, your Virtue, your Word, the unbegotten God,
  my Lord Jesus Christ was not with you.
May I worship you, our Father, and worship your Son with you;
  may I be as your Holy Spirit would have me to be,
  who proceeds from you through your only Son.
The proper witness of my faith is he who said:
  ‘Father, all I have is yours, and all you have is mine’
  – my Lord, Jesus Christ, who is always in you,
  always coming from you, always with you,
  and always God.
Praise is his throughout eternity. Amen.

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