Introduction
Welcome back to our weekly “Prayer for the World” each Wednesday. As I look back over the summer I am grateful for LCWR’s invitation to Sisters, friends and associates, to unite in prayer during the Republican and Democratic Conventions. I am also grateful for the weeks and months they provided us with music, prayers and videos to aid us in the process of our own transformation of consciousness which affects how we see and relate to others. Now we move into the season of autumn, the last days of this election season and our ongoing commitment to pray for our country and world.
Song: “Somewhere To Begin” by T.R. Richie and Sara Thomsen
People say to me, “Oh, you gotta be crazy!
How can you sing in times like these?
Don’t you read the news? Don’t you know the score?
How can you sing when so many others grieve?”
People say to me, “What kind of fool believes
That a song will make a difference in the end?”
By way of a reply, I say a fool such as I
Who sees a song as somewhere to begin
A song is somewhere to begin
The search for something worth believing in
If changes are to come there are things that must be done
And a song is somewhere to begin.
Reflection Material
There is a movement of transforming grace from personal transformation to a shift of consciousness for the whole.
“The world is not decided by action alone. It is decided more by consciousness and spirit…therefore, the way you look at things is not simply a private matter. Your outlook actually and concretely affects what goes on. In this, way, even in your own hidden life you can become a powerful agent of transformation in a broken, darkened world. There is a huge force field that opens when intention focuses and directs itself toward transformation.
Bless This Space Beween Us, by John O Donohue
Song, Verse Two: How can you Dream in times like these…
Quiet Contemplative Prayer
Reflection Material
With the help of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, we continue to address the 2024 election through the lens of transformative justice, grounded in contemplation. We seek personal transformation as basic to the greater transformation of our Church, Nation and World. And we try to practice skills that counteract the polarization, disrespect even hatred and violence that is so rampant today.
God, out of his infinite mercy, made himself equal to us in the incarnation by identifying with the human condition. God makes us equal to him by transforming us into his own unconditional love. … In prayer, not thinking but being is the primary practice. Thomas Keatin
In contemplative prayer, we quiet our minds with the intention to BE open to God who is Love, who transforms us. Focus on your breath. Breathing in and breathing out. When distractions come, simply focus again on your breathing.
Song, Verse Three: How can you Love in times like these…
Quiet Contemplative Prayer
Reflection Material
I realize putting time and energy into this communal transformation of consciousness may feel ambitious given the losses, stresses, and tasks many congregations of women religious are facing today. And yet, as Chardin foresaw, “through every form of effort to raise the powers of love upward to the next stage of consciousness” appears to be the way Spirit is alluring humanity forward at this moment in history. Happily, this is a direction in which our years of living in community, praying contemplatively, participating in communal assemblies, and even undergoing the purification of aging, give us a blessed advantage. The “Evolutionary Task Now: “The Evolutionary Task Now: To Raise the Powers of Love Upward,” by Liz Sweeney, SSJ
Quiet Contemplative Prayer
Closing Prayer (Together)
Jesus, Love Incarnate, we desire to be agents of the change that our Church and World needs so badly. Continue to transform us day by day into your unconditional love, individually and communally. We pray this in hope rooted in faith and trust in the power of your Grace. Amen.
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