Favorite Prayers

[Cynthia]

What's your favorite prayer? Perhaps in sharing we can remember old favorites and find inspiration and thin spots.

 

My current two favorites are:

 

Dear Lord, the Great Healer, I kneel before you,

Since every perfect gift must come from you.

I pray, give skill to my hands, clear vision to my mind,

kindness and meekness to my heart.

Give me singleness of purpose, strength to lift up a part

Of the burden of my suffering fellow man,

And a true realization of the privilege that is mine.

Take from my heart all guile and worldliness,

That with a simple faith of child, I may rely on you.

 

From "A Simple Heart," by Mother Teresa

Published by Ballantine Books, 1995.

 

 

The Peace Prayer of Saint Francis

 

"O Lord, make me an instrument of Thy Peace!

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is discord, harmony.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sorrow, joy.

 

Oh Divine Master, grant that I may not

so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive;

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life."

[curlytop]

Thanks, Cynthia! Here's another contribution:

 

Prayer of Thomas Merton

 

My Lord God,

I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,

And the fact that I think

That I am following Your will does not mean

That I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please You

Does in fact please You.

And I hope that I have that desire

in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything

Apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this,

You will lead me by the right road,

Though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore, I will trust you always,

Though I may seem to be lost

And in the shadow of death.

I do not fear, for You are ever with me,

And will never leave me

To face my perils alone.

 

--curlytop

[curlytop]

And here's another one by Rabindranath Tagore:

 

"Accept Me"

 

Accept me, dear God, accept me for this while.

 

Let those orphaned days that pssed without You be forgotten.

 

Only spread this little moment wide across Your lap, holding it under Your light.

 

I have wandered in pursuit of voices that drew me, yet led me nowhere.

 

Now let me sit in peace and listen to Your words in the soul of my silence.

 

Do not turn away Your Face from my heart's dark secrets, but burn them till they

are alight with Your fire.

 

 

 

--peace,

curlytop

[fatherman]

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy!

 

Grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

St. Francis of Assisi