I love you, O Lord, my strength. Psalm 18:1.

Here is a prayer written by an anonymous worshipper:

Lord God, creator, father/mother, saviour and friend, I see glimpses of your creative beauty in the stars, in the mountains, in trees and birds and flowers. The sun sings your praises, the moon gives you glory, the oceans, storms and thunder join the mighty chorus to extol your majesty.

You are the One in whom I live and move and have my being: you are not a remote unfeeling deity, but, amazingly, are deeply concerned about all my ways. I, even I, can experience your healing presence in my valleys, my lonely nights, and my grievings.

In my waywardness when I am inclined to selfdestruct, your grace covers a multitude of sins. Your will is my peace. To obey you is perfect freedom. Your energizing power gives my life purpose and meaning, and the promise of your nearness offers renewing hope.

Thank you for your gifts of fresh new mornings, work and play, laughter and cheerfulness, rest and sleep. Above all, thank you for your Word to guide me, strength to love, the fellowship of your people, and the sure promise of eternal life. Amen.

GOD IS NEAR

The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. Isaiah 40:28.

There was, somewhere, a special sanctum where people went just to talk, convinced someone was listening, and they came away healed...

God is near to all the lonely people, like Father McKenzie writing a sermon no one will hear, or the lonely boy at boarding school writing letters to himself...

From a long-forgotten source I copied these words: 'Your response is to do everything in your daily work for love of God but now with the realization that God is within you and in the material over which you are working. The two of you are working to fashion the total Christ, the body made up of this material world, which has its fullness of being in the Logos of God.'

Lord, my prayer is that I might discover your will, or rather, open my mind so that your will may become mine. Amen.

'MY GOD, MY ALL'

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. Psalm 62:1.

In the beautiful spiritual classic, The Little Flowers of St. Francis, there is a story about Saint Francis, 'faithful guardian of the secrets of God'.

When he judged that his friend Bernard was fast asleep, in the deep stillness of night he rose from his bed. With his face turned to heaven, and hands and eyes lifted to God, 'in complete surrender and with the warmest devotion' he prayed: 'My God, my All.'

He groaned these words out to God with 'copious tears and solemn devotion' again and again until dawn. 'My God, my All' - no more. 'Enlightened by the spirit of prophecy, and forseeing the mighty deeds God was about to do through his own Order, and considering in the same spirit's teaching his own insufficiency and poverty of virtue, he was calling on God to do himself what he was unable to do. Without such aid, [all our] frailty is powerless. Hence his words: 'My God, my All.'

My God, you are 'my All'. Amen.

O BEAUTY, SO ANCIENT AND SO NEW!

I love you, O Lord, my strength. Psalm 18:1.

Today we pray with St. Augustine one of the most famous prayers ever uttered and written:

Late have I loved you, O beauty so ancient and so new;
late have I loved you.
For behold you were within me, and I outside;
and I sought you outside and in my ugliness
fell upon those lovely things that you have made
You were with me and I was not with you.
I was kept from you by those things,
yet had they not been in you,
they would not have been at all
You called and cried to me and broke upon my deafness;
and you sent forth your light and shone upon me and chased away my blindness;
You breathed fragrance upon me and I drew in my breath
and do now pant for you:
I tasted you and I now hunger and thirst for you
you touched me, and I have burned for your peace. Amen.`