A Prayer of Thanksgiving

To us, your children,
Father, you have opened your hands and have shared with us the wonders of your world:
sun and sky,
leaf and flower,
surf and shore.

In your grace,
Father, you have given us one another. Into our keeping you have placed our selves that, united in your love, we may mold your earth into a home for each and every person: where we may live in peace and share in the love that alone warms life and gives its meaning.

For this, all of these things both small and great, and for the greatness caught within the smallest of your creatures we thank you.

Father, despite our best, our world is still weighted with sorrow: your sons and daughters still go hungry; your children take up the weapons of Cain against their brothers and sisters; we gouge the face of your world with greed and leave a wasteland where nothing, not even your children, may grow.

Keep us thankful,
Father, so that we may touch all things, and all people only with the delicacy of reverence and love. Keep us aware of the work, your work, that you have given into our hands. For only in your Spirit will your kingdom come, and that day shine when all people will see clearly that there is indeed reason for thanksgiving.

This, all of this, we ask in your Spirit, through our Lord and brother Christ Jesus.
Amen.

Adapted from: Home Celebrations, by Lawerence E. Moser, S.J. 1970