3.30.21 - Universal Prayer Offering- An Instrument of Your Peace (See Description for Reflection)

St. Joseph Health, Home Care Services

3-31-2021 Universal Prayer Offering- An Instrument of Your Peace I invite you to take a few deep breaths...if you feel comfortable, with your eyes closed...and to just slow down...as we begin to catch up to ourselves... Ring the chime… Let's set out our intentions for this short time of prayerful reflection. I invite you to offer them right now and hold them in your heart. Let us remember that a God of love, mercy, and compassion...is already among us...with us...for us...around us and within us... Using your hands, find & feel the pulse on your neck...take a few moments until you feel those life-proving beats...And once you’ve located that pulse, let's humbly acknowledge a God of miracles and give thanks for this day... for the sacred elements that give us life, earth, air, water, sun, and to our Creator for another day of life. Let us also remember the words that pass through this area of our bodies and that our words can breathe dignity into our community...Our words are powerful... may we "never seek to be a voice for the voiceless...for there is no such thing...because all, even the quiet, afraid and silenced, have a holy voice....may we say yes to amplifying those voices...and to use ours to "say their names." Now feel the pulse on your wrist...to represent the instruments of peace that are our hands...take a few moments until you feel your heart beating...And once you’ve located your pulse, let us be mindful of the connection between our deeds and our heart. We pray in thanksgiving for our hands...those which allow us to send emails, coordinate meetings, text, and communicate to colleagues and friends around the world, hands that create art in the name of justice...may we remember the hands of those outside of this virtual space, our families, our caregivers who are literally injecting life-giving medicines into the arms of people in our communities... and other essential workers who cultivate, prepare, cook, deliver food for society.... May we too say yes to being hands and feet to all, most especially to those who are most vulnerable and in need of healing. We lift-up those whose lives are touched by sadness, by illness, by worry, or by loneliness. We ask for prayers for the victims of needless violence, and for those driven from their homeland due to poverty, war, and persecution. And now...I ask you to find and place your hand on your heart... take a few moments to slow down, locate, and feel your heart beating...Let us acknowledge together that by our humanity, we are together...and may we also remember the connection between our God and our heart, and listen with all our heart and with all our being, mind, body, spirit. For God is always calling us to the more, inviting us into a deeper relationship with our Creator and with our brothers and sisters, for we are of one human family. How will we respond to the invitation? May our hearts lean towards yes, aware that we are always free to choose. Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace; Where there is hatred, let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; And where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek To be consoled as to console; To be understood, as to understand; To be loved, as to love; For it is in giving that we receive, It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, And it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. Wishing all our Christian brothers and sisters a blessed Holy Week, our Jewish friends a Divine Passover, our Hindu friends a joyful festival of Holi with the arrival of spring and to our Muslim friends as Ramadan approaches, many blessings. In the name of all things sacred and good. Amen Adapted from a reflection by JP Ramirez