Wednesday of the First Week of Advent
My last reflection focused on gratitude and today’s readings fling open the floodgates of gratitude once again! I invite you to be swept up in the current with me and allow joyous gratitude to wash over you and carry you through this day. Gratitude does indeed have the power to transform our minds and our hearts and thus reframe our attitudes and perspective toward all of life. Let’s enter into prayer this morning open and receptive to the conversion that God would want to bring to us upon the foundation of gratitude.
I offer this litany of thanksgiving based on what we find in today’s readings.
Our hearts and minds, souls and spirits swell with gratitude, O God, as we thank you for
Providing a heavenly feast for us;
Destroying the veil that veils all peoples, and the web that is woven over all nations;
Destroying death forever;
Wiping away the tears from all faces;
Removing the reproach of your people from the whole earth;
Saving us – let us rejoice and be glad that God has saved us!
Our hearts and minds, souls and spirits swell with gratitude, O God, as we thank you for
Being our Shepherd;
Giving us repose in verdant pastures;
Leading us beside restful waters;
Refreshing our souls;
Guiding us in right paths for your name’s sake;
Walking with us through dark valleys, protecting us, driving away fear, and giving us courage;
Spreading a table before us in the sight of whatever comes against us within or without;
Anointing our heads with oil, causing our cups to overflow;
Chasing us down with goodness and kindness;
Providing an eternal dwelling place with you, O God.
Our hearts and minds, souls and spirits swell with gratitude, O God, as we thank you for
Healing our blindness, our lameness, our muteness, our deformities;
For your compassion and mercy toward us, O Christ;
Providing and multiplying bread and fish – symbols of the Eucharist and of your eternal provision!
Wow, just wow! Thank you, God; thank you, God; thank you, God! May we live today overwhelmed by gratitude and may that humble posture reflect the extravagant love of God to everyone around us. Amen and amen!
Elizabeth Wourms