In our scheme of things, survival of the fittest is the rule. In God’s scheme, survival of the weakest is the rule. God always stands on the side of the weak, and it is there- among the weak- that we find God.
Our Father
Who always stands with the weak, the powerless, the poor, the abandoned. This is the insight of the saints.
Who art in heaven
Where everything will be reversed, upside down, where the first will be last, and the last will be first.
Hallowed be thy name
May we acknowledge your holiness; your ways are not our ways.
Your Kingdom come
Help us to create a world where we will walk justly, speak tenderly and walk humbly with you and with each other.
Your will be done
Open our freedom to let you in, so that the complete mutuality that characterizes your life may flow through our veins.
On earth as it is in heaven
May the work of our hands reflect the justice of heaven.
Give
Life and love to us, and help us always to see everything as a gift. Help us to know that nothing comes to us by rights, and that we must give because we have been given to.
Us
The truly plural ‘us’. Give, not just to our own, but to everyone including those who are very different from the narrow ‘us’.
This day
Not tomorrow. Do not let us put things off into some indefinite future, so that we can continue to live justified lives in the face of injustice.
Our daily bread
So that each person in the world may have clean air, pure water, enough food, health care, access to education and so have the basis of a healthy life.
And forgive us our trespasses
Forgive us our blindness towards our neighbor, our obsessive preoccupation, our racism. Forgive us our capacity to watch the evening news and do nothing about it.
As we forgive those who trespass
Help us to forgive those who victimize us. Help us to mellow our spirit, to not grow bitter with age, to forgive the imperfect parents, the family or the community that wounded us.
And do not put us to the test
Do not judge us only by whether we have fed the hungry, given clothes to the naked, visited the sick, or tried to mend the systems that victimized the poor. Spare us this test, for none of us can stand before this gospel scrutiny. Give us instead more days to mend our ways, our selfishness and our systems.
But deliver us from evil
Deliver us from the blindness that lets us continue to participate in anonymous systems within which we need not see who gets less as we get more.
Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer
Our father in heaven, holy is your name.
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours,
Now and forever. Amen
The Prayer attributed to Saint Francis
“O Lord, make me an instrument of Thy Peace!
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is discord, harmony;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sorrow, joy.
Oh 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.”
