Dear Sacred Heart & St. Mary on the Lake,
A couple of weeks ago I shared this prayer from Cardinal Meyer. A number of people have asked for it so I wanted to share it here. It is a prayer that has been a good source of reflection to understand how God’s grace has been present, is present, and will be present in the future.
For all you have given …... Deo Gratias (Deo Gratias means “Thanks be to God”)
For all you have withheld …… Deo Gratias
For all you have withdrawn …... Deo Gratias
For all you have permitted …… Deo Gratias
For all you have prevented …... Deo Gratias
For all you have forgiven me …... Deo Gratias
For all you have prepared for me …... Deo Gratias
For the death you have chosen for me …… Deo Gratias
For the place you are keeping for me in Heaven …… Deo Gratias
For having created me to love you for all eternity …… Deo Gratias, Deo Gratias, Deo Gratias.
I encourage you to bring this to prayer, taking time to ponder ways in which you have received grace in each of these ways. Many and surprising are the ways in which God works in our lives if only we had eyes to see it.
What I think is good for me in the moment may not be, and that fact is often something I only see in hindsight. How grateful I am that God doesn’t give me what I want, but only what is good for me. (Not that I have always been grateful in the moment that God loves me like a good Father instead of simply being a divine vending machine and giving me what I wanted on demand regardless of the consequences!)
Other graces have been people or things entrusted to my care only for a time and then are taken back—but how grateful I am that God trusted me to care for them for the time I had them. Often, we are meant to be a stepping stone in someone else’s life, not the whole path. It is a blessing to play whatever role that is, being it the first step or the last.
How grateful I am for the mercy of God that time and again has picked me up and set me back on my feet, helping me to keep on going.
I hope you find this prayer as helpful as I have!
God Bless,
Fr. Todd
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