Tag: Gift

Teach Us To Pray

For Our President

Smitten With Goodness
Season of thanksgiving in prayer

We have exercised our right to vote for a leader of our nation and to have our voices heard with our ballot. What a gift to have the freedom to do so. Despite our politics and our agreement with the elected candidate, it is our duty to be united for the health of our country. Let’s pray for the Holy Spirit to guide our leader! 

We pray O God of might, wisdom and justice, through whom authority is rightly administered, laws are enacted, and judgment decreed, assist with your Holy Spirit of counsel and fortitude the president of these United States, that his administration may be conducted in righteousness and be eminently useful to your people over whom he presides; by encouraging due respect for virtue and religion; by a faithful execution of the laws in justice and mercy; and by restraining vice and immorality.

Excerpt from Archbishop John Carroll’s a “Prayer for our Government” in 1791.

Teach Us To Pray

What Didn’t Happen

Smitten With Goodness
Season of thanksgiving in prayer

Do you take the time to thank God for what didn’t happen?

The missed car wrecks.

The hurricane that didn’t come our way.

My husband didn’t have to go to the hospital.

The spot on the mammogram that was just a cyst.

What are you grateful for that didn’t happen to you today? Send a prayer of thanksgiving to God today.

Teach Us To Pray

Season of Gratitude

Smitten With Goodness
Season of thanksgiving in prayer

As we enter fall and the final quarter of 2024, we move into the Season of Gratitude in our prayer where we thank God for what we have been given.  This is done in prayers of thanksgiving.  I love this statement, before you ask God for anything, first thank him for everything. 

When you sit down to eat, pray. When you eat bread, do so thanking Him for being so generous to you. If you drink wine, be mindful of Him who has given it to you for your pleasure and as a relief in sickness. When you dress, thank Him for His kindness in providing you with clothes. When you look at the sky and the beauty of the stars, throw yourself at God’s feet and adore Him who in His wisdom has arranged things in this way. Similarly, when the sun goes down and when it rises, when you are asleep or awake, give thanks to God, who created and arranged all things for your benefit, to have you know, love and praise their Creator.

St. Basil the Great

Let’s sing prayers of thanksgiving today!

Teach Us To Pray

Seek Truth, Find God

Smitten With Goodness
Season of asking in prayer

The Mystery of Asking

Why do we pray? If God already knows what we need before we ask, and God actually cares about us more than we care about ourselves, then why do we have to ask, receive, seek, find, (Matthew 7:7)? This is the mystery of asking. Prayer is a symbiotic relationship with life and with God, a synergy which creates a result larger than the exchange itself. We ask not to change God, but to change ourselves. We pray to form a living relationship, not to get things done. We need to pray to keep the symbiotic relationship moving and growing. Prayer is not a way to try to control God, or even to get what we want.  

Prayers of intercession or petition are one way of situating our life within total honesty and structural truth. We are all forever beggars before God and the universe. We can never engineer or guide our own transformation or conversion. If we try, it will be a self-centered and well-controlled version of conversion, with most of our preferences still fully in place, but now well-disguised.  We must “humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings.” It’s important that we ask, seek, and knock to keep ourselves in the right relationship with Life Itself. 

Life is a gift, totally given to us without cost, every day of it, and every part of it. A daily and chosen “attitude of gratitude” will keep our hands open to expect that life, allow that life, and receive that life at ever-deeper levels of satisfaction—but never to think we deserve it. 

O Mighty God, Help this world to know what is wrong and what is right. Provide peace and hope to those who are suffering from injustice. Show them that you are there, and you care for them and that you will make all things right. God, I pray for a world full of love and compassion.

Teach Us To Pray

Loving Lost Souls

Smitten With Goodness
Season of asking in prayer

Intercessory prayer for lost souls:

Has the Spirit placed on your heart to pray for lost souls? Isn’t that really what our journey is all about, the salvation of our own souls and walking the journey with others?  I love to pray this prayer of St. Gertrude, a 13th century Benedictine nun and mystic who envisioned the release of 1000 souls from purgatory each time she prayed it:

Eternal Father, I offer You the most Precious Blood of Your Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the Masses said throughout the world today, for all the Holy Souls in Purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the Universal Church, those in my own home, and within my family. Amen

Teach Us To Pray

Psalms for Praying

Smitten With Goodness
Season of asking in prayer

A Invitation for Wholeness, Psalm 144

Blessed are You, O Radiant One,

  You, who are hidden within

our hearts,

  even as we are hidden within

your Heart!

You invite us to participate in

  the Divine Unfoldment,

As we Awaken from our long sleep

  and give birth to creativity.

Open us that we might recognize the

     divine in every person,

  and become sensitive to all we

     meet along the path.

For you are the Breathing Life of all,

  the infinite and eternal within

     our hearts.

Evoke the Child in our souls,

  that purity and grace might

     flourish!

Infamous with compassion so

  we nurture ourselves and others

     with healing and forgiveness!

Empower us with wisdom and knowledge,

  that we might bring forth

     the Divine Plan!

And let us recognize the Truth

  that clear vision might unfold.

Let us sing a new song to You,

O Beloved;

  with the drums and flutes let us

     express our joy!

You who are Divine Love, receive

     our devotion,

  that we may walk in beauty.

May our heart’s ears heed well

  the Divine Word written on

     every heart,

  that integrity and justice may

     dwell within us.

Let each one be receptive to the

     Spirit that inspires,

  allowing our will to respond

      with action;

And may all judgments and denials

     be released,

  that our souls are freed

     to serve the l

Light with joy!

Thus will we recognize oneness with

  The divine spark dwelling

     within our hearts,

  fanning it to illuminate the way.

Gratitude and inner peace will abide in

     every tranquil soul,

  blessing the universe that

     lovingly cares for us.

Nan C. Merrill

Teach Us To Pray

Agnus Dei, Lamb of God

Smitten With Goodness
Season of asking in prayer

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,

have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,

have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,

grant us peace.

Agnus Dei, 

quitollis peccáta mundi: miserére nobis.

Agnus Dei,

quitollis peccáta mundi: miserére nobis.

Agnus Dei,

quitollis peccáta mundi: dona nobis pacem.

Teach Us To Pray

By Design

Smitten With Goodness
Season of asking in prayer

Each of us was created with a unique destiny as God designed, to bring peace and justice to the world.  Let’s pray this prayer for world peace cooperating in our destiny according to His plan.  Thy will be done!

A Prayer for World Peace

We pray for the power to be gentle;
the strength to be forgiving;
the patience to be understanding;
and the endurance to accept the consequences
of holding on to what we believe to be right.

May we put our trust in the power of good to overcome evil
and the power of love to overcome hatred.

We pray for the vision to see and the faith to believe
in a world emancipated from violence,
a new world where fear shall no longer lead men or women to commit injustice,
nor selfishness make them bring suffering to others.

Help us to devote our whole life and thought and energy
to the task of making peace,
praying always for the inspiration and the power
to fulfill the destiny for which we and all men and women were created.

– Author Unknown

Teach Us To Pray

Fingerprint of Our Soul

Smitten With Goodness
Season of asking in prayer

Let’s pray that God reveals his peaceful heart to us today and we can see justice through His eyes revealing the precious nature of each soul. 

A Prayer for Peace

We are moulded, each one of us,
in the image of God,
and within our souls there is a fingerprint
none can erase.
We pray for those who have no regard
for anyone but self,
who put no value on human life.
For nations and individuals who abuse and kill.
We are not called to be judge or jury,
but we are called to be agents of change,
and if the butterfly that flaps its wings
should be our attitude to others
then so be it, Lord,
and may the hurricane this generates
somewhere within the world
reach into the hearts and souls of those
for whom we pray, and reveal to them
how precious are those
for whom they have no love,
and how precious are they
who now bring tears to the eyes of God.

– John Birch

Teach Us To Pray

Hope for Us All

Smitten With Goodness
Season of asking in prayer

Lets pray for a culture of nonviolence and a society where our needs are met and our desires are right ordered.  This prayer by the late Benedictine Sr. Mary Lou Kownacki, a poet and peace activist, provides words of hope and inspiration for us all. 

Prayer for the Decade of Nonviolence

I bow to the sacred in all creation.
May my spirit fill the world with beauty and wonder.
May my mind seek truth with humility and openness.
May my heart forgive without limit.
May my love for friend, enemy, and outcast be without measure.
May my needs be few and my living simple.
May my actions bear witness to the suffering of others.
May my hands never harm a living being.
May my steps stay on the journey of justice.
May my tongue speak for those who are poor without fear of the powerful.
May my prayers rise with patient discontent until no child is hungry.
May my life’s work be a passion for peace and nonviolence.
May my soul rejoice in the present moment.
May my imagination overcome death and despair with new possibilities.
And may I risk reputation, comfort, and security to bring this hope to the children.

Amen