Weekly Peace Prayer

for April 22, 2025
prepared by
Sister Carmel Little, CSJP

Constitutions:           
With reverence for the blessings of creation,
we use our resources, both individually and collectively,
in a spirit of stewardship.
The spirit of poverty also calls us
to work for a more just society
so that all may be enriched
by a more equitable sharing in the goods of the earth.  #56

Reading:
When the hour comes,
You shall change my desert into a waterfall,
You shall anoint my head with fresh oil
And your strength shall overcome my weakness.

You shall guide my feet into your footsteps
And I will walk the narrow path
That leads to your house.

You shall tell me when and where
I will walk you path totally bathed in joy.
In the meantime,
I ask you, Lord, you who awaken
In the most intimate place in my soul
The Feast of Life!
That of the Empty Tomb!
That of the Victorious Cross!

Let your voice mistaken as the Gardener’s
Awaken my hearing every morning
With news that’s always fresh:
“Go and tell my brothers and sisters
That I have overcome death,
That there is a place for everyone
There where the New Nation is built.

There, where neither earth, love, or joy
Can be bought or sold,
Where wine and milk
Are shared without money and without price.
Julia Esquivel, Guatemala,
Threatened with Resurrection. 1982

Prayer:    Peace to Our Earth
Peace to this earth, this gift of creation,
which we celebrate with joy and with reverence.
In the spirit of the first Francis, may we take time to see
the radiance of creation, this gift of light and liquid 
and green growth.

Quiet Reflection

Reading:        Spring                      
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –         
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; 
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush         
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring         
The ear ,it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy pear tree leaves and blooms, they brush         
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush         
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.         

What is all this juice and all this joy?         
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,         
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,         
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,         
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.
  Gerard Manley Hopkins 

Prayer:    Peace to Our Earth
Peace to this earth, this gift of creation,
which we celebrate with joy and with reverence.

Quiet Reflection

Prayer:  Gracious God,
we thank you for this earth, our home; for the wide sky and the blessed sun, for the ocean and streams, for the towering hills and the whispering wind, for the trees and green grass.

We thank you for our senses by which we hear the songs of birds, and see the splendor of fields of golden wheat, and taste autumn's fruit, and rejoice in the feel of snow, and smell the breath of spring flowers. Grant us a heart opened wide to all this beauty; and save us from being so blind that we pass unseeing when even the common bush is aflame with your glory.

Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life.  We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen