I serve the community's prayer
I gather it and give it voice.
I am leader, and I am listener,
I am seeker of stories.
What is your grief and what is your delight?
(Woman, why are you crying?)
What saps your strength and renews your youth?
(What matters are you discussing as you walk along?)
What concerns you from day to day?
(Have you caught anything, friends?)
What are your memories and what are your dreams?
I sit at the feet of a hundred story tellers.
I hear Good News:
God has taken flesh
at breakfast tables and on assembly lines,
in classrooms and in hospitals,
I hear the Gospel proclaimed
from the lips of a hundred preachers.
I the faith-bearer
am challenged by a hundred questions,
and dunked a hundred times a day
in reality.
I dare not offer platitudes
to these struggling Christians,
my teachers.
I put on the Lord Jesus Christ
who walked our roads and knew our hearts,
who listened with love.
Am I to be head
of the body-at-worship?
Then I must be its ears,
first a hearer.
Janet Schlichting, O.P.
Quotable Archive
Just click on a "Quotable" title below to read the review.
(The latest submissions are listed first.)
• Others Have Value In God's Eyes •
• The Trinity •
• PRAYING FOR PENTECOST •
• The Season of Pentecost •
• A PRAYER TO THE CREATOR •
• A PRAYER FOR OUR EARTH •
• ON TURNING •
• Prayer for Peace •
• Pentecost •
• Second Synod of Orange •
• 7 Social Sins •
• The Homily •
• Resurrection •
• Sin Is Something that Changes... •
• AND THEN... •
• The Winter Journey of Advent •
• A Prayer For the World •
• Come Home •
• A New Psalm •
• A blessing for Preachers •
• Christmas In A Prison Cell •
• Compare Reading the Scriptures With Eating the Eucharist... •
• DOMINICAN PREACHER •
• Eastering •
• For Me To Preach... •
• Formulas •
• I Am Disciple •
• Indeed Any Sermon... •
• Christ needs apostles •
• Jesus, Light of the World, Come •
• Lament For A Son •
• Lenten Penance •
• Litany of Non-Violence •
• Lovelight •
• Making the House Ready for the Lord •
• Money Order Angels •
• Ongoing Listening •
• On Jordan's Bank •
• Peace Prayer •
• Preacher •
• Preaching At Weddings •
• Preaching Is Dangerous •
• Preaching Has As Its Primary Purpose... •
• Seeds of Contemplation •
• The Homily Is Not... •
• The Difference Between Dead and Living Sermons •
• The Dominican Family •
• The Natural World •
• I'm Praying for Pentecost! •
...and blessings on your preaching!
