Just back from a really stimulating day with other chaplains at the Clinical Pastoral Education Retreat to Dromantine. It fell to our group to lead worship at the beginning and for it I wrote the following responsive prayer based on the first part of Isaiah 61 (I came home to discover that Stocki had referred to the latter part of the same chapter in his Surmise today promoting the upcoming Four Corners Festival - it is a truly inspiring chapter of scripture... perhaps that is why Jesus chose to read it to his home Synagogue in Nazareth.) I may have written it for a group of chaplains, but, if the Pope is correct in defining the contemporary church as a "field hospital" for those wounded in the world (a concept which we explored today) then it is an appropriate prayer for all those who are part of the church...
Sovereign Lord pour
your Spirit upon us,
Anoint us to bring good
news to the poor and the powerless
and clothe them in praise in place of deep despair.
Sovereign Lord pour your Spirit upon us. AMEN
Wherever we may
encounter them on our journeys:
Send us out to bring healing to the heartbroken.
Send us out to bring healing to the heartbroken.
May we proclaim
pardon for the imprisoned,
Whatever form of
captivity people find themselves entrapped in:
May we announce that this is the year of God’s grace.
May we bring comfort to all who mourn and are weighed down with grief
May we bring comfort to all who mourn and are weighed down with grief
May we bring bouquets of blessing in place of funeral
wreaths
the perfume of joy in place of the aroma of
deathand clothe them in praise in place of deep despair.
Sovereign Lord pour your Spirit upon us. AMEN
Shalom
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