prepared by Fr Michael Whelan sm

Read this poem out loud thoughtfully several times:

Out in the dark, I know, sing a thousand voices;
and the owl, the poet’s bird, and the saint’s white moth
blunder against my window, the frog in the rain rejoices.
I pledge to the night and day my life’s whole truth.
And you, who speak in me when I speak well,
Withdraw not your grace, leave me not dry and cold,
I have praised you in the pain of love, I would praise you still
In the slowing of the blood, the time when I grow old.

(Judith Wright, “Prayer” in Judith Wright: Collected Poems,
Angus & Robertson, 1994, 229)

“At that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech,
that all of them may call on the name of the LORD
and serve him with one accord.”
(Zephaniah 3:9)

Advent Prayer

(To be said each morning)

“Lord, keep my heart always set on You today,
so that from it will flow the springs of life.
Protect me from crooked speech,
and put devious talk far from me.
Let my eyes look directly forward,
and my gaze be straight before you.
Keep straight the path of my feet,
and all my ways will be sure.
Let me not swerve to the right or to the left;
turn my feet away from evil. Amen”

(Adapted from Proverbs 4:23-27)

“Set the believers an example in speech and conduct,
in love, in faith, in purity.”
(1Timothy 4:12)