Seasonal Prayers

Winter's beauty has enveloped the north with a blanket of sparkling white snow. As we anticipate the new beginnings the New Year brings we take time to reflect on a year full of changes and obstacles - challenging ourselves to grow in faith and forgiveness as Jesus taught us.

PRAYER TO THE MOTHER OF GOD IN GRATITUDE FOR GIFTS RECEIVED

Honor be yours, O Mother of God.

We rejoice in thanksgiving for signs of God’s love.

We take great joy in the fruitfulness of the earth,

In good harvests, in full barns and in the special signs given to us this day.

We are grateful for the harvest-fullness of life itself,

For the blessings of health and the fruits of the Spirit which have come to us.

Together with all those who love your Son, Jesus, we rejoice in Him who was the fruit of your womb, the harvest gift of history and an eternal blessing to each of us.

Mary, Blessed Mother and gateway to mystic love,

Help us to be united with all those who love God and seek truth.

May our gratitude this day for the special gifts that have come to us, be praise and honor for our God, the Lord of All Gifts.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, we thank you for your intercession and ask that you carry our prayer of gratitude straightway to the heart of God.

Amen+

PRAYER TO ACCOMPANY THE TAKING OF MEDICINE

Lord,

my sickness has made praying difficult. Its pain makes me self-conscious, so that I find it a burden to think of the needs of others.

Divine Healer, I need Your aid. May this medicine which I am about to take cure me and call forth the hidden healing powers of my body.

The medicine is taken.

I ask that through the power of the Cross of Christ, this medicine,

blended with faith and devotion, may restore me to the fullness of health.

A sign of the cross or other sacred gesture is made.

Lord, with faith and abounding hope in Your love, I pray in communion with You, my Beloved, and with all those who desire my healing, my return to the wholeness of health.

I place trust in this medicine based on my trust in You, the eternal healing medicine of life. I believe in Your holy power to heal me of all that has combined to create my present illness.

I seek to be healed, but I seek even more Your holy will as I embrace Your final choice. Bowing in loving obedience as did Your Son, Jesus, on the Mount of Olives, I seek holiness in Your will more than just health of body.

Amen+

BLESSED ARE YOU, LORD OUR GOD, WHO SHARES PAIN AND SUFFERING AS PART OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE

Lord our God, Incomprehensible One, Your sacrament of suffering, The mystery of pain, Has burst into our lives. We have been offered the cup of bitterness so that we may share in the sorrow of Your Son, Jesus.

And so help to heal the sickness of our planet. We thank You for this opportunity to explore, with those around us and with all the world, the puzzle of pain.

May we only seek the fullness of life, not rejecting the element of pain inherent in all growth and essential in each search for wholeness.

We, as disciples of Christ, follow in the footsteps of the Suffering Savior, asking that this pain have special meaning for us and for all the earth.

Blessed are You, Lord our God, who shares pain and suffering as part of the mystery of life.

+ Amen