In our journey through the desert, we have come to a halt. Lord Jesus Christ, we need you to rest and quench our thirst.

For all around us, and even more so in the distance, the earth is dry from not having enough rain, the earth is burnt by huge fires, devastated by bombs or earthquakes – and how many hearts throughout the world are dried up by the desolation of daily life or the anguish of tomorrow…

In you we recognise the One who illuminates the dry places in us so that we can work on them, and who, by his own journey and the gift of his life, offers us living, purifying and thirst-quenching water, ready to flow over the barren lands to irrigate the future.

For this oasis of hope at the edge of your well, Lord Jesus, we bless you.

Lord, teach us to make integral ecology our own.

Draw us out of the torpor of a light and insidious irresponsibility towards the state of the world.

May this lucidity, far from making us give up, give us the necessary impetus to change the world step by step, with your help!

The wind is blowing hard.

The storm refreshes us, and scares us a little, too.

Lord, what if it was our sister and mother earth that was crying out in revolt?
So much plunder, pollution and abuse committed against her!

And, why not, what if it was your anger, Good God, who no longer knows how to make us hear your call, your warning:

“My beloved children, you are on the wrong path.
Change your ways of producing and consuming, of housing and feeding yourselves, of working and travelling!

Yet, Lord, do not cease to speak to us, to call us and to hope in us.

Lenten prayer

God, your commandment of love is not new, but it is with a renewed heart that we want to accept it, so that it may give our lives momentum. May our implementation of the Gospel throughout this Lenten period be more than sacrifices and fasts – which nevertheless help us to detach ourselves from ourselves in order to return to what is essential – but may we be given the enthusiasm of the faith that always starts afresh! We pray to you through Christ Jesus, our brother and Lord.

The only sign that we truly recognise ourselves as sinners is that we get up, like Levi who leaves his office as a publican, to respond to the invitation to the feast! (Luke 5:27-32)

Be gracious to me, O God, for I am a rich man who loves his voice and his possessions, but I have had wind of you, I have not fled from your breath. Release me from my possessions, bind my voice to your service, and let it take wind from the poor lands.

Be gracious to me, O God, for I am of lowly water, which troubleth thy word. The earth of which thou hast made me hides dark exchanges that mar thy reflection. Do not abandon me to their power and keep me from loving them.

Be gracious to me, O God, I am but a sinner. I come to drink from the spring in the heart of Christ without knowing my sin: the joy of being invited carries me. But what other testimony can I give to my Saviour? If he had not forgiven me everything, from what place would I speak?

There are days when the foundations of the earth seem to be shaken and we experience the limits of our omnipotence.

Help each of us to discern what still carries us.

There are days when you seem to sleep in the boat of humanity and the waves want to overwhelm everything.

Yet help us to believe in your presence with us.

There are days when the words “brotherhood” and “solidarity” seem to ring hollow.

Yet turn our gaze to so many modest actions, lived in discretion and gratuity.

There are days when the disparity of our living conditions, between countries, between fellow citizens, between generations, seems inexorably to increase.

Help us not to lose those you have entrusted to us.

There are days when our capacity for commitment seems difficult to maintain in the face of the magnitude of the problems facing our time.

Help us not to give in to weariness or fatalism, give us the energy of those who truly love.

Prayer

Yes, you are the God who brings us through the waters of the sea and of death. Do not stop the work of your hands, renew what our fathers told us, do not abandon our humanity to the excesses of the elements which it may have unleashed itself! Come, save us when we perish! Our prayer appeals to the very name of Jesus, in whom you save us, today as yesterday and until the end of time.

Lord, as we look at our world and the everyday of our lives, unhappiness often seems to inhabit humanity, and despair lurks in our thoughts. And yet, at the heart of all that destabilises our lives, you come to meet us. Where there is only weakness and poverty, you come to dwell and build bridges over the walls of our impasses.
Praise be to you for being the Lord of the life of the world, for being this friend of humanity who wants to transform and renew existence so that in the depths of unhappiness, hope may dawn for what makes us happy!
Praise be to you!

Lord, you are the Living One,
you are the Living One. You live with us. You live in us.
We are at this hour the voice of those who are struggling to live, of those who face nothingness and hope for nothing, of those who are born into this world and those who die, of those who struggle so that Life may be, immense prayer, Lord.
Everything can be destroyed in this passing world, yet you make it the place of your coming Kingdom.
Praise be to you!

The Word of God inspires the words of prayer, dare we say that our words, in turn “inspire” God in his action? Perhaps, if we agree that Love is capable of everything, except indifference. Love allows itself to be reached, to be moved. Love can be pushed to invent, to re-create, to open up passages in our dead-end situations. Teresa of Avila insistes “Love demands deeds !”. Would God be content to love “with words and language” only, and not constantly translate his love into deeds and truth, which he does, and eternally! God embodies his Word, and cannot leave us strangers to His unrelenting ACTION! Continuously creating through us, the desire of the infinite desire of love, its fulfilment…