A Song in Celebration of the Mercy of Our God

What God has done for me will never be forgotten,
the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
His mercy flows in wave after wave
on those who are in awe before him.
He bared his arm and showed his strength,
scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
the callous rich were left out in the cold.
He embraced his chosen child, Israel;
he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
It’s exactly what he promised, beginning with Abraham and right up to now.”

Mary of Nazareth

As You Will Father

Heavenly Father:

Thank you for the faith of a young woman, in whose obedience your plan for the reconciliation of the whole world was begun.

We beg you, too, that you might empower us in pure simplicity. Teach our mouths and all our parts to make this single response to whatever task you set before us – this:

Let it be to me according to you word.

“Yes!”

Amen

Walter Wangerin, Preparing for Jesus

A Prayer for Significance

“O Lord, catch us up … in the whirl of your holy history. We seem to be but particles in the wind; but you declare each one of us to be a particular person, spokes in the great wheel of your covenant-loving of the world.
Let us be meek in your kingdom, but not abject; humble, not self-pitiful; obedient, not obsequious; servants, not servile; childlike, not childish; yours in love and willingness, and then our smallness shall be your greatness indeed.”
Walter Wangerin, Preparing for Jesus