April 22, 2021

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Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 66, a hymn of rousing gratitude for God’s loving and responsive protection.

Bless our God, you peoples,
    loudly sound his praise;
God has given life to our souls,
    and has not let our feet slip.

Psalm 66: 8-9

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The psalmist encourages us to let people know that we recognize God’s presence and grace in our lives always. That Presence may be a gentle, otherwise imperceptible, constant unless we give it voice and honor by our actions.

Hear now, all you who fear God, while I declare
    what God has done for me.
When I appealed to God in words,
    praise was on the tip of my tongue.

Psalm 66: 16-17

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Poetry: Come to Dust – Ursula Le Guin

Spirit, rehearse the journeys of the body
that are to come, the motions
of the matter that held you.
Rise up in the smoke of palo santo.
Fall to the earth in the falling rain.
Sink in, sink down to the farthest roots.
Mount slowly in the rising sap
to the branches, the crown, the leaf-tips.
Come down to earth as leaves in autumn
to lie in the patient rot of winter.
Rise again in spring’s green fountains.
Drift in sunlight with the sacred pollen
to fall in blessing.
                                   All earth’s dust
has been life, held soul, is holy.

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Music: Bless Our God – John Foley, SJ – I love this beautiful hymn … definitely in my top ten.

Bless our God the Father of Jesus the Lord of our ways. 
Every gift is ours in our life, in the Lord of our days.
 
Refrain:
Praise to his name, we are made for the praise of his glorious name. 
He chose us to be those who trust in his ways.

May our God give light to the eyes of your mind for your days. 
May he give you wisdom and knowledge of him, in his ways. 

Bless our God, he grants us the gifts of our lives in his ways. 
Bless our God, he saved us he gave us the Christ for our days.