Fr. Jett Villarin, Chairman of Synergeia, started the Trustees’ meeting with this beautiful prayer. We would like to share it with our partners .
May we always be protected by the Almighty.
Lord of life,
Help us to listen to what you are telling us these days. Lead us to know what you are asking of us in this storm. You are inviting us to leave familiar shores while the waves are high. You are asking us to make this crossing to the other side while the horizon is dark. We do not know what this other side holds for us. We are afraid, you know our fear.
Give us faith to see you with us now, in this boat being tossed by the waves. Give us hope to hold on to when life rolls sideways and the lurching becomes unbearable. Give us love to give to each other when our hearts break, when we are tired from rowing against the wind, when we are hungry and lost and alone.
Please give us enough light to keep us going, enough silence so we can listen to how you are asking us to take heart, to keep together and not be afraid.
Our old plans are shot, our dreams disrupted. Bring your dreams then closer to ours. Turn our lives so that your longing becomes our longing. We are made in the likeness of you. You are the Lord of the waves and the wind, the giver of life, the conqueror of death. Lead us to draw boldness and creative power from your limitless love. Empower us to find our strength in you.
Help us to be brave. We take the words of Sir Francis Drake to be our prayer today:
Disturb us, O Lord,
when we are too pleased with ourselves,
when our dreams have come true
because we dreamed too little;
when we have arrived in safety
because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, O Lord,
when with the abundance of things we possess,
we have lost our thirst for the water of life;
when having fallen in love with time,
we have ceased to dream of eternity,
and in our efforts to build the new earth,
have allowed our vision of the new heaven to grow dim.
Stir us, O Lord,
to dare more boldly,
to venture on wider seas
where storms shall show thy mastery,
where losing sight of land,
we shall find the stars.
In the name of Him
who pushed back the horizons of our hopes
and invited the brave to follow Him, Amen.