transform

Eye of God, look not away

/ Eric Mathews / 2 Comments
Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash
 
All-Seeing One,
above me, around me, within me,
Be my seeing as I read these sacred words.
Look down upon me
Look out from within me
Look all around me
See through my eyes
Hear through my ears
Feel through my heart
Touch me where I need to be touched;
    and when my heart is touched,
    give me the grace to lay down this Holy Book
    and ask significant questions:
Why has my heart been touched?
How am I to be changed through this touch?
All-Seeing One,
I need to change
I need to look a little more like You
May these sacred words change and transform me.
Then I can meet You face to face
    without dying
    because I’ve finally died enough.
To die is to be healed a little more each death,
    until that final death
    when I’ll be healed forever.
It will be a healing that will last.
Your Words are healing
    although they bring about my death.
 
Macrina Wiederkehr, 1939-2020, Benedictine sister and spiritual director
 
_____________________________
 
 
For the word of God is alive and active.
Sharper than any double-edged sword,
    it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow;
    it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight.
Everything is uncovered and laid bare
    before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
 

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take our lives and transform them

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

 

O Lord, take all our sorrows 
    and use them to show us the nature of your joy.
Take all our sins and, forgiving them,
    use them to show us the ways of true pleasantness 
                                and the path to true peace.
Take all our broken purposes and disappointed hopes 
    and use them to make your perfect rainbow arch.
Take all our clouds of sadness and calamity
    and from them make your sunset glories.
Take our night
    and make it bright with stars.
Take our ill-health and pain 
    until they accomplish in your purpose
    as much as health could achieve.
Take us as we are with impulses, strivings, longings
    so often frustrated and thwarted,
    and even with what is broken and imperfect,
  make your dreams come true,
through him who made of human life a sacrament, 
    of thorns a crown, of a cross a throne,
    even through Jesus Christ our Lord.
 
Leslie D. Weatherhead, 1893-1976, London Minister
 
__________________________
 
 
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time
    are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

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transforming lives for your glory

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image / pixabay
 
Creator God, our heavenly Father,
your Son was a carpenter in Nazareth:
we pray for all those who labor
in our factories and shops.
Grant them wisdom and honesty, strength and skill,
to provide for themselves
and for the needs of our country.
Look with compassion on the landless poor,
the unemployed and homeless,
the orphans and the hungry,
and grant us your power to work towards justice
in transforming their lives for your glory;
through the risen Lord Jesus Christ,
who had nowhere to lay his head.
 
prayer from Kenya
 
___________________________
 
 
Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
    maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and the needy;
    deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
They have neither knowledge nor understanding,
    they walk about in darkness;
    all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

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