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PRAY NOW: TODAY'S PRAYER
Sharing dialogue
They said to each other, 'Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to
us on the road . . . ?'
Prayer
Our paths were two parallel lines, same direction, never meeting,
Sad words flitting crabwise between us, keeping us together,
An endless, fruitless rehearsal of events, truisms, platitudes.
Sometimes, that's what it's like, with us. . .
Father, you, beyond speech
Are the goal of our speaking, as of our living;
For you are the meaning for which,
So blithely – or desperately – we substitute trivial meanings of our own,
Only to mourn your absence, even while you are there for us.
Christ, You are Language,
Inviting us to take you as the syntax of our self-expression,
Stringing together our words and actions
Into a lived utterance of love.
Holy Spirit, you are Advocate,
Articulate in our speechlessness, the medium of our conversation,
Interpreting, each to the other, our silences, our loss-for-words.
In you we understand each other,
Because in you, absolutely, we are understood.
O vast, attentive hinterland of our chatter,
Teach us how to listen, as well as talk,
To receive as well as transmit.
In you the words that flit between us,
Zig-zagging the short distance from soul to soul
As we tread our road together,
Can bind our mere shared direction into a single, shared journey,
And our introverted rehearsals, our dislocated speech,
Into a shared story, of where we have been
And where we are going, in you.
Readings
Genesis 18:22–33 Abraham pleads
R uth 1:7–18 Ruth convinces Naomi
2 Kings 2:1–15 Elijah and Elisha discuss
Job 42:1–6 Job repents
Mark 12:28–34 Question and answer
Luke 24:13–35 Talk on the road
John 4:1–29 Inter-faith dialogue
Prayer activity
Flick through a magazine until your eyes light on a sympathetic face - someone
you feel you could talk to. Why? What does this person draw out of you that
you might wish to say to a complete stranger? Light on another face, in the same
magazine or another. Try this a few times. In each case, take the humanity of the
person whose face it is as seriously as you can. Or - with the same respect for their
humanity - do this with a face you don't immediately warm to. How much of our
reaction to others do we foist on them? How ready are we for a dialogue - and
how free, or otherwise, from a monologue already going on in our heads?
Prayer for the Church
As we endeavour to communicate Christianity in meaningful ways through the mass
media
especially website managers, Press Officers, those involved with the production of Life
& Work, E-news, Minister's Forum and in Saint Andrew Press.
Blessing
May the language of our bodies
Be the love of Christ,
The constant discourse of our gestures
His accepting welcome;
May we articulate,
In all we say, and do, and are,
The presence of Christ in his world;
And may the peace of Christ give us humility
To listen . . .
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