CALL WAITING… Prayers for your calling

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God is definitely calling you to something, just as he calls every Christian to some form of service. If you already know what your calling is, pray to be faithful. If you are still searching, pray to hear God’s voice and to respond generously.

The following prayers will help you—but God also wants to hear the words of your own heart.

All highest and glorious God,
Cast your light into the darkness of my heart.
Grant me right faith, firm hope, perfect charity,
profound humility,
With wisdom and perception, O Lord, so that I may
always and everywhere
Seek to know and do what is truly your holy will, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen

St Francis of Assisi (1181–1226)

Father,
I abandon myself into your hands.
Do with me whatever you will.
Whatever you may do I thank you.
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me and all your
   creatures.
I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul.
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart.
For I love you Lord and so need to give myself,
surrender myself into your hands without
   reserve and with boundless confidence
   for you are my Father.
Amen

Foucauld (1858–1916)

Father,
I know you love me and have plans for me.
But sometimes I am overwhelmed by the
   thought of my future.

Show me how to walk forward one day at a
    time.

May I take heart while I search openly,
    learn all about the choices, listen to
    others for advice, and pay attention to my
    own feelings.

By doing these things, may I hear your call to
    live a life that will let me love as only I can,
    and allow me to serve others with the
    special gifts you have given me.

I ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Lord,
you call us to be story-tellers: planting your explosive news into our defended lives;
locating us in the script of your human history.

You call us to be trailblazers: living in your future that we receive only as gift; subverting the fixed, fated world of low horizons.

You call us to be weavers: tracing, stretching, connecting the knotted threads; gathering up unravelling, disconnected lives.

You call us to be fools – for Christ’s sake: bearing life’s absurdities and incongruities; puncturing our seriousness and grandiosity.

You call us to be hosts: welcomers of the sacred, intimate, transfiguring; lavish celebrants of our communities and homecomings.

You call us to be poets: artists and illuminators of inner space; naming, invoking, heralding your ineffable presence.

You call us to be gardeners: sowers, cultivators, nurturers of fragile lives; benefactors of your gratuitous harvest.

You call us to be conductors celebrating polyphony, coaxing symphony; orchestrating the praise of your inhabited creation;

Lord, you lavish gifts on all whom you call. Strengthen and sustain us and all ministers of your Church, that in the range and diversity of our vocation, we may be catalysts of your kingdom in the world, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Roger Spiller (1944– )

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.
Jeremiah 1:5

See, I have engraved you on the palm of my hands.
Isaiah 49:16

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Jeremiah 29:11

I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:14

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