A Gathering Prayer
“Your Word is a light to me feet and a lamp to my path…”
O God we gather and we worship because you speak.
If you did not speak the light of the brightest sun would be darkness as far as our life and our path is concerned. But we gather around your word, we gather in the light of your speech.
If you were silent we would be like chickens inside an egg waiting, perhaps to be hatched or crushed.
If you did not speak the possibility of nothingness would surround us like a silent shadow. If you did not speak we would imagine you in our own image, to keep the nothingness at bay.
But you speak and you speak your inner life, your word. And you speak it out in life, in time, in and history. You speak words we struggle to understand. You speak gift…, you speak love, you speak Jesus Christ, a life given to the point of death, and given again, even when taken away.
We gather in awe of your word, as it creates ripples of community in human life, as the witness reaches to us in this story that will not die.
We gather in thanks for the scriptures, for through them your Spirit continues to bring a light to our path and a lamp to our feet, and continues to speak the Word that is Jesus into life in our life. Constitute us now… constitute us as a community of listeners and so a community of disciples… for your Word’s sake,
Amen.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.
REMEMBER, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly to thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to thee do I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.
