March 13, 2024
Prayers – 1
A Lenten Prayer
Dear Friends,
Today begins a series of Inbox Inspirations entitled Prayers. These columns will not be about prayer. They will, instead, be prayers that we might find helpful. These will not be the ordinary prayers that all of us know, like the Our Father or Hail Mary. They and many others constitute a wonderful part of our Catholic/Christian treasury. For the most part, the prayers being offered in these columns will be rather contemporary or some in our tradition that we do not often pray. I hope that they will nourish our relationship with God. Today we begin with A Lenten Prayer.
A Lenten Prayer
Dear God,
During these weeks of Lent, I want to remember,
first, that I am already your “beloved.”
I believe that the gospel passage for the Second Sunday of Lent
is very important.
We hear you, our heavenly Father, speak of Jesus:
“This is my beloved Son.”
Well, you have spoken those same words to me and to each of us:
“You are my beloved daughter.” “You are my beloved son.”
You, our heavenly parent, speak these words to each of us
when we are first conceived and given life.
You repeat these words again to each of us
who is given life through baptism.
Loving God, you really want me to remember this,
maybe especially during Lent.
We are encouraged to do some more prayer,
some fasting from food, and some charitable acts
in this season that is called penitential.
But, loving God, I think all of this
is not to merit or be worthy of your love.
Your love is already here, for me and all of us.
Jesus has assured us of this, and I take him at his word.
So, anything I do during Lent, good God,
is just my effort
to grow as your son or daughter.
It’s my trying to live more fully out of this
friendship with you.
So, I thank you for this gift of yourself,
the gift of your love for me and us.
And now I will live in the peace and joy
of this friendship
and try to be the best friend to you that I can be.
I pray with trust in you,
our heavenly Parent,
in your Son Jesus,
and in your Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Fr. Michael Schleupner
March 20, 2024
Prayers – 2
A Prayer of Faith
Dear Friends,
In our Catholic treasury of prayers, we have had what is called an Act of Faith. This is not a profession of faith, as we recite at Mass. Rather, it is a simple prayer to God expressing our faith. What follows here is an attempt at a contemporary Prayer of Faith.
Prayer of Faith
Gracious God,
I believe that you are beyond us.
You transcend this world.
You are our creator.
You have brought into being all that is and
you continue to hold in being
everyone and everything that is.
I praise you as our heavenly Parent.
You are God the Father.
Loving God,
I also believe that you are alongside us.
In fact, you have become one of us.
You have taken on our humanity
in the birth of Jesus
who was born of Mary.
And now, you, Jesus,
are our life because you are Emmanuel, God-with-us.
You are also our truth
because you are our way to the Father.
You suffered and died on the cross
out of complete faithfulness to your mission
and out of complete love for us.
And then, wondrously, amazingly,
you rose from the dead.
I praise you as our savior.
You are God the Son.
Finally, good God,
I believe that you are within us.
You are within those who are baptized
and part of the community of believers
that we call the Church.
But you must also be within all persons
or else they would not even exist.
You enlighten and inspire
and guide us in everyday life.
You sustain us in the hope of resurrection.
You, God within us,
are the constant presence of God
who is also beyond us and alongside us.
You are God the Holy Spirit.
This, loving God,
is the core of my faith.
Help me to stay with this
and keep growing in this all the days of my life.
May glory be to you,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
now and forever. Amen.
Fr. Michael Schleupner
March 27, 2024
Prayers – 3
A Prayer of Hope
Dear Friends,
In our Catholic treasury of prayers, we have had what is called an Act of Hope. This is a simple prayer that places our hope in God. What follows here is an attempt at a contemporary Prayer of Hope.
Prayer of Hope
Gracious God,
I place my hope in you.
But this is not always easy for me.
I see so many problems in our world,
like war and poverty and prejudice.
And at times I feel anxious about my health
or the health of my loved ones,
and I feel worried about the future.
But still, good God,
I choose to hope in you.
My hope is not just optimism
because I know that things will not always
turn out the way I want.
Instead, my hope is believing that you,
my God, are with us.
After all, you, Jesus, promised us
that you will be with us always.
You will remain with us
no matter what we are going through.
I also hope in you because you,
Jesus, tell us that if God takes care
of the grass in the fields,
will he not also take care of us?
Most of all, I place my hope in you,
my God,
because of what we call the paschal mystery.
This is a mystery – I don’t fully understand it
but I believe it.
It is the mystery that dying leads to new life.
Again, you, Jesus, use the example of a grain of wheat
being buried in the soil.
If it dies, dies to itself, the result is
a sprout and eventually wheat.
New life.
So, I believe that my sufferings
and losses and failures
can all lead in some way to life, new life.
And I believe that this will even happen
when I die to my body.
So, with all of that,
I hope in you, my God.
Sustain my hope through all my days.
Strengthen my hope when I waver.
I place my trust in you,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Fr. Michael Schleupner
April 3, 2024
Prayers – 4
A Prayer of Love
Dear Friends,
In our Catholic treasury of prayers, we have had what is called an Act of Love. This is a simple prayer that expresses our love for God. What follows here is an attempt at a contemporary Prayer of Love.
Prayer of Love
Gracious God,
Jesus tells us that the first and greatest commandment is this:
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:”37).
Loving God,
there are people in my life whom I love.
I am blessed with family and friends
whom I love and to whom I can say:
I love you.
It feels a little different to me to say this to you.
Maybe the thing I have to remember
is that you, God, have first loved us.
“This is what love is:
It is not that we have loved God,
but that he loved us…” (I John 4:10).
So, my love for you, God,
is really my response to your love for me.
My love consists in my making you
the center of my life.
You are the reference point for all that I say and do
and even for what I think.
You are the mortar, the cement
that holds together all the pieces of my life.
You give me meaning and purpose.
You are my beginning and my end.
So, yes, I do love you.
I want to give of myself and my life
to you who have given so much to me.
In fact, you have given yourself to me
in Jesus.
For all of this, for your love of me,
I thank you and love you,
who are love itself.
After all, that’s what we are told:
“God is love” (I John 4:8).
I find these words and the image of you
that this conveys to me
so very reassuring and affirming.
So, yes, I do love you and will try to love you
as you, who are love itself, have loved me,
especially in and through Jesus.
Alleluia! Amen!
Fr. Michael Schleupner
April 10, 2024
Prayers – 5
A Prayer or Grace before Meals
During the Easter Season
Dear Friends,
We have a traditional grace before meals. I hope we all know that. I am going to repeat that below, but then also give a grace that seems to be a good alternative for this Easter Season. This alternative is broken in parts for when more than one person is present for the meal, but it can also be prayed by one person alone.
Traditional Grace before Meals
Bless us, O Lord,
And these thy gifts
Which we are about to receive
From thy bounty.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Grace before Meals During Easter Season
Leader: “On this feast of feasts we have been brought into
the land overflowing with the milk of God’s Word
and the honey of the Eucharist.”
All: “This is the holy day on which we share in the new
fruit of the vine and bless Christ forever.”
Optional Lord’s Prayer
Blessing: “Praise to you, O God our father, who gives us
the joy to share in the rising of Christ to new life.
May the joy of our Paschal celebration remain
with us all the days of our lives, and be a lasting
sign of your loving presence among us.
Bless our daily nourishment and all those present
at this table. Make us aways mindful of the needs
of others. We ask you this through Christ,
our Risen Lord. Amen.”
Easter Grace from Blessings of the Table by Brother Victor-Antoine d’Avila-Latourrette.
April 17, 2024
Prayers – 6
A Prayer in a Time of Sickness
Dear Friends,
Sometimes we want to pray for a family member, a friend, a fellow employee, a fellow parishioner – anyone who is sick. I hope the following will be a helpful prayer. We can also edit this a bit to pray for ourselves when we are dealing with an illness.
A Prayer in a Time of Sickness
Gracious God,
I praise you as the Creator who gives us life,
as the One who wants the fullness of life for us.
I praise you in your Son Jesus
who carefully tended those who were sick
and healed so many people.
He even brought people back to life.
I pray today for your son/daughter ______
who is sick and wants to be restored to good health.
Hear my prayer for his/her healing.
With faith in you and hope in your love,
I ask You to stir the healing powers of his/her body
which you created.
May the doctors and all health care professionals
be wise and caring agents of your power.
May the medications and treatments
be a healing balm and work together
with the blessed Oil of the Sick,
the sacrament that you have given us.
Relieve the suffering of ______.
May he/she find consolation in remembering
the suffering that you, Jesus, endured
out of love for us and
out of faithfulness to your mission.
May he/she find renewed strength
in you, Jesus, who save us
from the powers of death.
May he/she be comforted,
especially in times of loneliness,
by your presence, O Holy Spirit,
who abide and remain within each of us.
I pray for healing and restored health for ______.
Divine Healer and Lord of Wholeness,
I and we place ourselves in your hands.
We trust in your love.
May ______be blessed
with the affection of those who love him/her
and with your power and love,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Fr. Michael Schleupner
April 24, 2024
Prayers – 7
A Prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel
Dear Friends,
What follows is a prayer to Saint Michael that I have composed. This expresses how I relate to Saint Michael today, in the twenty-first century. I hope this prayer will also be helpful to you.
A Prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel
Saint Michael the Archangel,
lead us in the journey of life.
Help us to follow the way of Jesus
with the clarity of mind and heart
that the Scriptures portray you as having.
Guide us in Jesus’ way of love of God and of others
and in his faithfulness to his mission.
Strong Saint Michael,
help us to see ourselves as we are:
with our strengths and weaknesses,
with our goodness and our sinfulness.
But protect us from those forces
that would have us look only
at our darkness and would burden us
with self-diminishing guilt.
Lead us to know that we are
both imperfect and yet beloved to Jesus,
both in need of growth and yet made worthy
by Jesus’ own word and action.
Courageous Saint Michael,
help us to see the greed and indifference,
the disrespect for human life and the prejudice
that can overtake our world.
But protect us from those forces
that would have us see only darkness
and look upon all that is different from us
as lost or secular.
Lead us to remember that you are everywhere,
that you are present in everyone and
even come to us in persons and things
whom we don’t label as sacred.
May you, Saint Michael the Archangel,
be God’s messenger
in all of this.
We remember that this is what an angel is –
an angelus in Latin, a messenger of God.
Saint Michael, help us to be open
to new messages coming from God.
This is the prayer and request that we,
daughters and sons of God,
brothers and sisters of Jesus,
this is the heartfelt prayer that
we bring to you today.
Amen.
Fr. Michael Schleupner
