Tags
bless, compassionate, Hearts on Fire, Jesuit John Morris, New Year's, praise, psalm 96, The Sophia Center for Spirituality
I come late to this task this morning. Perhaps it was the cold that kept me sleeping until the shocking hour of just before eight o’clock! The temperature continues to hover around zero degrees and warnings of frostbite because of wind still make the national news. I feel rather stuck here in my chair with the only thought being that of the impending turn of the calendar. Today is not the last day of the year; that reality dawns with tomorrow but seems all around me now in shadow. Psalm 96 calls me to praise but I feel like a person on a diving board who isn’t sure of how to swim in the water that awaits me.
There seems to be nothing to do but to throw the responsibility for it all back to God and pray in the words of Jesuit John Morris hoping that will suffice as remote preparation for the coming new year.
Mighty God, Father of all, Compassionate God, Mother of all, bless every person I have met, every face I have seen, every voice I have heard, especially those most dear; bless every city, town and street that I have known, bless every sight I have seen, every sound I have heard, every object I have touched. In some mysterious way these have all fashioned my life; all that I am, I have received. Great God, bless the world. (Hearts on Fire, p.152)