Lord God,
You are before night and before day,
Before the shifting of clays,
Before the blossoming of constellations,
Before all things, God, You are!
God, You are Love, solely,
So without noise or power,
But with infinite tenderness,
God, You create Life,
And Life flows, a joyful source…
And you say:
Go out into the whole world,
set to work
so that the universe may become a harmonious space…
For your life, placed in our hands, be blessed, O our God.
God our Father, through Jesus who is our path to you and to others, guide our steps.
Lead us where we dare not go, towards a tomorrow that only Love can give us the desire for, that
only Hope can invent, a future to which we want to commit ourselves!
By your Breath, lead us to the truest part of ourselves, where faith ventures forth with others,
and may our common work be a sign of your Presence among us.
Since each of our days is the first and each passing hour a beginning,
may our whole being give substance to the light!
Christ, make us witnesses of your presence.
May our hands remember only the love they have sown
and the strings they have made vibrate!
Christ, make us instruments of your Love.
May our steps lead us to the source that is within and also ahead of us,
waiting only to refresh us!
Christ, make us signs of hope.
Lord our God,
you are a God who wants to enter into relationship with human beings. But you never impose yourself.
May we be ready to open the door of our hearts and homes to you
when you knock quietly at our door, through the stranger, the poor, the unwelcome friend who
asks for bread in the middle of the night, the traveller who hopes to be invited into the tent of hospitality.
This is how you came to visit us.
Lord Jesus, with you we have entered into the growth of your Kingdom.
Through your Spirit, sustain in us the dynamism of faith that seeks to be fulfilled.
To those who suffer, open the space for your word of truth that sets us free and
leads us towards others.
To those who suffer in their bodies, open the space of compassion, a presence that soothes and
lifts them up.
To those who suffer from situations of oppression and injustice, open the space of the powerful Word
that weaves bonds of solidarity.
To all those defeated by history, past and present, open up the space of your victory over death, which
carries us to the shore of invincible hope.
Lord our God,
keep us in poverty of heart.
Rejecting all spirit of possession and resignation,
in the name of that fraternal future you promised to mankind…
It is through our poverty that we will know you,
it is through our brotherhood that we give you a face,
God of communion, blessed for ever and ever.
Lord, you who have only one desire, that we love one another,
we pray to you:
Put in us the concern of love that finds no rest until bread is shared
among all.
Teach us the truth of love that casts a critical eye on ourselves and the world and fights against everything
that diminishes human beings and their right to life, to the earth, to freedom.
Teach us the patience of love that always believes in others, in the truth of their desire and in the power
of new beginnings.
Teach us the trust of love that opens its arms and makes the impossible possible.
Teach us the poverty of love, which expects nothing in return, but loses itself and gives itself…
On our path to awakening to nature, Lord,
we feel the need to communicate with it as if it were an intimate place of divine dimension.
We feel the need to be even more in the moment, to attune our hearts to the rhythm of
nature in order to capture the magic of Life.
We want to keep in mind to always love, admire, protect and observe with wonder
everything and every moment as a treasure of our mother earth.
May your grace, Lord, offer our families, our communities, young people and children
a sweet and peaceful future, like the morning dew… accompanied by the mist of shadows
that dissolves in brotherly love to sustain the miracle of Life within you.
Praise be to you, our God !
Blessed are you, Lord our God, for calling us once again to prayer this evening.
You precede us in prayer, and if you did not come to rekindle the call within us,
it would quickly be stifled by the noise of life.
Yet it is a place of light and also of destitution,
a place of peace but also of struggle…
It arises in the most secret part of each one of us,
in the silent quest for a Mystery that eludes us,
and it also brings us into unison with the same song,
a single praise where your Spirit gathers us together.
Blessed are you, Lord, for offering us this time of prayer…
