Spirit of Peace,
You know how worry and fear
Can take over and hound
A person’s tranquility.

Today I place my loved one,
With all his (her) worries and fears,
Into your caring hands.
I place myself and my concerns
In your caring hands, as well.

Calm our hearts and minds.
Encourage us to face what troubles us.
Help us each to let go of what we fear.

Breathe your peace
Through our anxious hearts,
And deepen our trust
In your abiding presence.

I will be attentive to any worries or concerns about the future that my loved one has. I will offer assurance of my love. I will also be attentive to my own worries and concerns and try to entrust them into God’s loving care.

Spirit of Guidance, I see before me numerous choices and a decision to be made.

There is division in my heart. Sometimes I want none of what I find. Sometimes I want it all. Sometimes I want to give up making decisions and wish that the future would go away.

I entrust my decision-making into your hands, ready to do my part but also knowing that I cannot do this without your help.

Lead me through all the unsure, unclear, doubtful, hesitant, and questioning moments that are mine as I search to find the right way in which to go.

Grant me the grace to choose freely, without being attached to the outcome. I trust that you will be with me as I make my decision prayerfully and with faith.

Assure me that your peace will rest deep within me as I make the decision that seems best for me at this time. I may continue to experience feelings of turmoil and confusion, but deep within I know that I can return to that settled place in me where you always dwell.

Guide and Director of my life, I place my life in your hands. Lead me to the path that will best deepen and strengthen my relationship with you.
– Joyce Rupp

May you* desire to be healed.
May what is wounded in your life be restored to good health.
May you be receptive to the ways in which healing needs to happen.
May you take good care of yourself.
May you extend compassion to all that hurts within your body, mind, spirit.
May you be patient with the time it takes to heal.
May the skills of all those who are caring for you be used to the best of their ability in returning you to good health.
May you be open to receive from those who extend kindness, care, and compassion to you.
May you rest peacefully under the sheltering wings of divine love, trusting in this gracious presence.
May you find little moments of beauty and joy to sustain you. May you keep hope in your heart.

Hold your hands over your own heart and remember the power of love within you. Then, extend your hands of love toward the one who needs healing. Give this healing love to the one being blessed. If blessing oneself, recognise and accept this power of love within you.
– Joyce Rupp

*If praying for oneself, insert “I” instead of “you.”

In order to unite with one another,
We must love one another;
In order to love one another,
We must know one another;
In order to know one another,
We must go and meet one another.

Birth is a beginning
And death a destination
And life a journey:
From childhood to maturity
And youth to age;
From innocence to awareness
And ignorance to knowing;
From foolishness to discretion and then,
Perhaps to Wisdom:
From weakness to strength
Or strength to weakness – and back, we pray.
To health again;
From offence to forgiveness,
From loneliness to love,
From joy to gratitude
From pain to compassion,
And grief to understanding – from fear to faith;
From defeat to defeat to defeat –
Until, looking backwards or ahead,
We see that victory lies
Not at some high place along the way,
But in having made the journey, stage by stage.

Holy God, this is earth’s quiet season.
The season of waiting.
We rest in the shelter of your love.

This is the season of darkness,
When we seek stars to guide us.
We trust in the light of your promise.

This is the season of solitude ,
When we listen to our own heart’s rhythm.
We find warmth in the signs of your presence.

This is the time to make room,
A time to make ready.

God, Lord of eternity, your Son came to visit us in time.
Grant to each one of us the heart of a child which never
ceases to marvel at your wonders, so that once again you
may find us watching in hope.

Lord Jesus,
I give you my hands to do you work.
I give you my feet to go your way.
I give you my eyes to see as you see.
I give you my tongue to speak your words.
I give you my mind that you might think in me.
I give you my spirit that you might pray in me.
Above all, I give you my heart,
that you may love in me, your
Father and all creation.
I give you my whole self, that you may grow in me,
so that it is you Lord Jesus,
who live and work and pray in me.

Direct Lord, we beseech you all our actions by your
holy inspiration and carry them on by your
gracious assistance, that every prayer and work of
ours may begin always from you
and by you be happily ended,
Through Christ Our Lord
Amen.

Holy One, you have given us the gift of story in our lives, ways of understanding who we are, ways of making sense of our world, of finding meaning and knowing how to respond to all that happens in our lives. Please show us where our stories fall short or are too narrow, where they exclude rather than include, where they divide rather than unite. Help us to see where a story we live out of may go amiss of what is real, where it allows us to escape becoming whole, where it lets us live comfortably in fear. Fill us with your story, the story of unity and compassion and love. Fill us with images that energise us and give us hope and lead us to the fundamental truth that you have tried to teach us all along: we are all one.

Amen.

I do not think of you lying in the wet clay
Of a Monaghan graveyard: I see
You walking down a lane among the poplars
On your way to the station, or happily
Going to a second Mass on a summer Sunday –
You meet me and you say:
‘Don’t forget to see about the cattle –’
Among your earthiest words the angels stray.

And I think of you walking along a headland
Of green oats in June
So full of repose, so rich with life –
And I see us meeting at the end of a town
On a fair day by accident, after
The bargains are all made and we can walk
Together through the shops and stalls and markets
Free in the oriental streets of thought.

O you are not lying in the wet clay,
For it is harvest evening now and we
Are piling up the ricks against the moonlight
And you smile up at us – eternally.