Holy Spirit, open my heart to understand how precious I am to you, how loved I am by you. Open the eyes of my soul, to see the gifts you have put before me this day. Give me the grace to recognize each encounter with you. Teach me to respond in gratitude, to grow in gratitude. Teach me to be generous, as you are generous with me, and to collaborate with you in serving my sister and my brother for your greater glory.
Holy, you are the most holy one. Draw me towards holiness. I see, hear, and touch glimpses of you and your love as your will is fulfilled before me. You have given me this day to live.
Spirit, inspire me to rise up and live alive, choosing your will, not mine. Pulling the weeds of temptation by choosing what I want and planting seeds of your promises. Provide me the fortitude to be gentle with my aging body and tuning into its needs. I’m sorry for that many times when I have abused myself, starving it for movement and nutrition by falling into the trap of abandoning my body. By putting myself last on the list of people to care for. When I prioritized the comfort of work or lack of discipline rather than movement or healthy choices. I forgive myself and I’m open to your purification to cleanse me and teach me the way to do this. Help me lose the all or nothing and live in the tension and call on the Spirit of self-control. Protect my thoughts that become desires, I will bring them to you. I will use the relationship with my body to bring me closer to you.
I commit myself to you, establish my plans. This is how I will serve you today living in your power and glory. By loving the temple of my aging body. God be praised, hallelujah is my song, in gratitude.
I’ve always been a person who accepts change despite my desire to cling to the comfort of the known. Lately I’ve been leaning into using AI to help with my work writing. It’s a great tool, just like the calculator has been. I got curious and asked Microsoft CoPilot to scour SWG and write a poem of gratitude which follows. Despite it not being crafted directly from my heart, it did a pretty good job!
Heavenly Father,
I come before You with a heart full of gratitude. Thank You for the countless blessings You bestow upon me each day. Your goodness surrounds me, and I am in awe of Your love and grace.
Thank You for the gift of integrity, for guiding me to live a life of honesty and virtue. Help me to walk in Your truth and to reflect Your goodness in all that I do.
I am grateful for the moments of stillness where I can feel Your presence and for the strength You provide during times of challenge. Your love sustains me, and Your wisdom guides me.
Lord, I thank You for the beauty of creation, for the people You have placed in my life, and for the opportunities to grow in faith and love. May I always be mindful of Your goodness and strive to cultivate it within myself and in the world around me.
I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart, I will tell of all your wonderful deeds. Psalm 9:1
Lord, I come before you with an open heart, longing to see your goodness all around me. Gratitude is your precious gift, but sometimes my eyes are clouded and my spirit grows weary. Come Holy Spirit, ignite within me a deep and abiding thankfulness. Help me to see your blessings in the ordinary and the extraordinary. May each sunrise, each act of kindness, fill me with wonder. In times of challenge, let gratitude be my compass, reminding me of your faithfulness and guiding me towards hope. Use my grateful heart, Lord. May my life radiate your joy and draw others closer to you. Thank you for the transformative power of gratitude, a gift I long to receive fully and share freely. Amen
For physical suffering and sickness. Draw near to us God in our infirmity; may the limitations of our human bodies teach us to rely more and more on You.
For the ways in which we’ve been wounded by others. Loving God, we know that you hear the cries of those who have been mistreated, harmed, and oppressed.
For the grief we carry with us. Comfort us in our mourning and console us with the hope of the resurrection.
For mental and emotional anguish. Send your Spirit to renew our minds and soothe the often unseen pain hidden within our hearts.
For moments of suffering when we have felt alone or abandoned. Surround us with your presence, reminding us of your constant care even in times of darkness.
Happiness is hidden in suffering, redemptive, and transformational.
Life is not black and white. When we find ourselves standing on one side or another of an issue or a situation, we have assumed the role of judge, a role that is not ours. We are challenged to show no partiality , to make no distinctions in life, for we cannot truly know the heart and mind of another. While difficult to do, we are called to look with love on all those we meet and pray for God’s blessings to fall upon them. As you go through this day, pause and reflect on the issues you face and strive to be a voice of reason, calm, and patience, showing a path of love to God and neighbor.
God of compassion, you are the true judge of what is good and evil. Free us from the temptation to pass judgment on ourselves and others, so that we may live more fully as your sons and daughters. Through Christ our Lord, amen
Another way of explaining intercession is standing in the gap between God and the person you are praying for. In Ezekiel 22:29-30, God lamented “I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one.”
The need to stand in the gap before God is as urgent now as it was six hundred years before Christ. The heart of the true intercessor knows no boundaries; they are able to pray “for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, for persecutors, for the salvation of those who reject the Gospel” (CCC 2636)
Lord, show me who You want me to stand in the gap for today. When I tell someone I’m going to pray for them, help me know what and when to pray. Thank You God for trusting me to stand in the gap for a vulnerable one whom You have given me to protect and defend in prayer. Amen
We can mis-live life. All it takes is the consistent application of mediocrity, laziness, procrastination, obsession with material possessions, and self-centeredness. Let’s pray for the Holy Spirit to guide our hands and be safe in God’s tower of goodness.
Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe who is good and bestows good, let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands upon us, establish the work of our hands.
Proverbs 18:10, tells us that the name of the Lord is a strong tower; and the righteous man runs into it and is safe.
Lord, help all creation see we are created by Your divine workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which You have prepared for us. Help us walk in this knowledge. Grant us patience with all things – but first with myself. Clear our mind to know that our mistakes don’t detract our value as a human being. We are a perfectly valuable, creative, and worthwhile person simply because we exist. And no amount of triumphs or tribulations can ever change that.
A prayer based in Ephesians 2:10 based on the truth that God created us to be a reflection of him, and that he calls us his masterpiece and the writings of St. Francis de Sales.
Smitten With Goodness 