Monday, April 19, 2010

Prayer of the Week


For this week’s prayer I share the “Prayer of the 2010 Synod.”

You may recall that this “Synod of the Baptized,” scheduled to take place on Saturday, September 18 in Minneapolis, is being planned by the Twin Cities-based Catholic Coalition for Church Reform (CCCR) – of which I serve as co-chair.

Yesterday, April 18, was the first anniversary of the launching of CCCR. It’s a coalition that is actively working to create a church fully alive, locally and universally, that radiates Jesus’ core teaching of radical equality, unabashed inclusivity, and transforming love.

The prayer for our 2010 Synod reflects both our work and our vision of church. It is inspired by the Pentecost Sequence and the “Prayer of the Council Fathers of Vatican II,” itself attributed to St. Isidore of Seville for the Second Provincial Council of Seville in 619. It began the sessions of the First Vatican Council in 1869, and was prayed before every meeting of preparatory commissions and conciliar commissions of Vatican II.

Hmm, I wonder if our Synod Prayer will similarly take on a life of its own and inspire present and future Catholics beyond the Twin Cities. Regardless of whether it does or not, it remains a beautiful prayer, and one that captures well, I believe, the presence and movement of the Spirit in the local church of St. Paul/Minneapolis. I invite you to pray it with me this week.

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Prayer of the 2010 Synod

Come, Holy Spirit, come and direct us in your light.
Come, Father and Mother of the poor and of us in our poverty.
Come, Giver of God’s gifts.

Be the Guide of our words and actions.
Enlighten the path we should take.
Reveal what you would have us do
that we might remain in union with you.

May you be our only inspiration and the guardian of our intentions.
For you will keep us always in union with the living God.

May you, the source of true justice, encourage us to embody justice.
May you, breath of love, inspire us to act with compassion.
Unite our hearts to you alone that, with your grace,
we may be one in you and one with all creation.

United in your name and power may we discern your movements
that today and always we might be the community that Jesus envisioned
that Holy night: One with You and One with each other (John 17:21).

We ask this in and through Christ the Lord.

Amen.


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Prayer of the Week (April 12, 2010)
Karl Rahner on the Need for Prayer
A Springtime Prayer
Letting Them Sit By Me
For the Traveler
It Happens All the Time in Heaven


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