February 26, 2022
Saturday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, each of our readings encourages us to live a life of prayer – with fervor, perseverance, and childlike simplicity

The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful.

James 5:16

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O LORD, to you I call; hasten to me;
hearken to my voice when I call upon you.
Let my prayer come like incense before you;
the lifting up of my hands, like the evening sacrifice.

Psalm 141:1-2

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Let the children come to me; do not prevent them,
for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

Mark 10:14

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Rather than make any theological comment on prayer, I thought I might simply offer some of my own poetry-prayers today, if you would care to pray with them.

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Awaking

Sunrise paints 
the hedge's morning side
rosy gold.
But I choose
the western side.
There, midnight's purple leaves
awake in lazy grey, 
then stripes
of green and silver.
There, the awesome 
grace of living
rises slowly in the heart,
a liquor savored,
a prayer lingering
In genuflected silence

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Prayer

Still ourselves,
we are more one
than separate now,
Heart over heart,
heart within Heart,
like a word's meaning
held within its sound.

I drink from that union
like the verdant earth drinks
from its deep reserve of water.
It is Your color
that flushes
every blossom
sprung from me.

But that water, once tasted
precludes satiety
by any other water.
There is
no return for me now
to a season
not fed by You.

What I have given You, then
is the whole seed of my life.

Love it in that way.

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Music: Inside This River – Gary Schmidt