On this Christmas evening, my heart goes out to all people who ache for peace and for the basics of life. In this Year of Mercy, may our lives be flooded with God’s love. I pray that we may live out that love in the world by offering people the essentials of food, clothing, water and a compassionate presence. On this tender day of remembrance and joy, may God find a home in you. (Litany: Ronald Raab, CSC)

A Litany of Prayer for Christmas Mercy

Response: In your compassionate mercy, O God

 

Receive me when I am bent down with burden…

Receive me when my face is frozen from past regrets…

Receive me when I fear reaching out beyond my worry…

Receive me when I am reluctant to be known or heard…

 

Guide me when I prefer the shadows of my loneliness…

Guide me toward the light of your care for me…

Guide me with your hand of forgiveness even when I resist…

Guide me to my own heart where love is still being born…

 

Give joy when I am searching to make sense out of life…

Give joy in my family life this holy season…

Give joy in prayer for our fragile world…

Give joy in my forgiving thoughts about my enemies…

 

Open new thoughts for us when we are trapped in negative thinking…

Open new paths for us even along roads of cynicism…

Open new directions for us because our own paths lead nowhere…

Open new doors of love in this Year of Mercy…

 

Be peace in our collective voices of loathing and lashing out…

Be peace in our hatred of one another…

Be peace in our resistance of change…

Be peace in every city and nation…

 

Jesus, be born among our broken hearts and fragile lives…

Jesus, be born among the marginalized…

Jesus, be born in our desire for a better world…

Jesus, be born in our children for their future…

 

Jesus, send your mercy from the manger where you were born…

Jesus, send your mercy with the light of a star…

Jesus, send your mercy with Joseph’s care and fidelity…

Jesus, send your mercy in the integrity of Mary, your mother…

 

Jesus, help us become the mercy we seek…

 

 

Merry Christmas,

Fr. Ron