Pray it Off 3/28/13 A Step Along The Way and Life Promise Prayer

Archbishop Oscar Romero Prayer: A Step Along The Way

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent
enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of
saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an
opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master
builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw  *This prayer was composed by Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw, drafted for a homily by Card. John Dearden in Nov. 1979 for a celebration of departed priests. As a reflection on the anniversary of the martyrdom of Bishop Romero, Bishop Untener included in a reflection book a passage titled "The mystery of the Romero Prayer." The mystery is that the words of the prayer are attributed to Oscar Romero, but they were never spoken by him.

Life Promise Prayer

In the name of the One God, ever living and life giving,
faithful and true, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

I accept God's gift of life to me
     in the circumstances
     of my conception and birth,
     of my parents, of my family,
of all whosoever care for me or did me  
harm in all the years that began the journey        
of my life.
God who calls by name works all together for my good.
     I choose life.

I accept God's gift of life around me,
     the sacred treasure of each human life
     whether sister, brother, friend or stranger;
     however whole or broken, small or great,
     saint or sinner,
     rich or poor, ill or well, ally or enemy, or
     indifferent.

Each is crafted in God's image, to each is offered
Christ's redemption, in each moves the spirits blessing.
      I choose life.

I accept God's gift of life in my times,
     in infant's cry, in childhood's wonder
     in trails of teen years and embrace of youth,
     in maturity's accomplishments and failures,
     in waning day's and night's negotiations.
Among the creatures with the breath of life within them,
God has placed the timeless in the human heart,
but not the reach to grasp or measure it.
     I choose life.

I accept God's gift of life in my dying,
     in God's hands the shaping of the manner
     by God's clock the counting of the hour.

May God who lays me down uphold me.
May Christ along the way companion me.
May spirit lift, and light billow me into the Resurrection.

     God is life, and this I choose.

In the name of the One God, ever living and life giving,
faithful and true, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

By Fr. Richard Meredith, Diocese of Owensboro