A Prayer Giving Thanks

(Rev O. Eugene Pickett, UUA)

For the expanding grandeur of Creation, worlds known and unknown, galaxies beyond galaxies, filling us with awe and challenging our imaginations:
We give thanks this day.
For this fragile planet earth, its times and tides, its sunsets and seasons:
We give thanks this day.
For the joy of human life, its wonders and surprises, its hopes and achievements:
We give thanks this day.
For our human community, our common past and future hope, our oneness transcending all separation, our capacity to work for peace and justice in the midst of hostility and oppression:
We give thanks this day.
For high hopes and noble causes, for faith without fanaticism, for understanding of views not shared:
We give thanks this day.
For all who have labored and suffered for a fairer world, who have lived so that others might live in dignity and freedom:
We give thanks this day
For human liberty and sacred rites; for opportunities to change and grow, to affirm and choose:
We give thanks this day.
We pray that we may live not by our fears but by our hopes, not by our words but by our deeds.
We give thanks this day.

Amen.

An Orthodox Prayer

Set our hearts on fire with love for you, O Christ our God,
that in that flame we may love you
with all our heart,
with all our mind,
with all our soul,
with all our strength,
and our neighbour as ourselves;
so that keeping your commandments,
we may glorify you, the giver of all good gifts.

Amen.

Grace at meals

Bless us, O Lord, and these your gifts, which we are about to receive from your bounty.

Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Prayer for Christmas or Epiphany (Orthodox Liturgy)

What shall we present to you, O Christ,
for your coming to earth for us?
Each of your creatures brings you a thank-offering:
the angels – singing;
the heavens – a star;
the wise men – treasures;
the shepherds – devotion;
the earth – a cave;
the desert – a manger:
but we offer you the virgin-mother.
O eternal God, have mercy upon us.

Amen.

Prayer of thanks for the gift of a child

(from The Book of Common Prayer)

Heavenly Father, you sent your own Son into this world. We thank you for the life of this child, _____., entrusted to our care. Help us to remember that we are all your children, and so to love and nurture her/him, that (s)he may attain to that full stature intended for her/him in your eternal kingdom; for the sake of your dear Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Prayer of Thanksgiving for the Beauty of the Earth

(from The Book of Common Prayer)

We give you thanks, most gracious God,
for the beauty of earth and sky and sea;
for the richness of mountains, plains, and rivers;
for the songs of birds and the loveliness of flowers.

We praise you for these good gifts,
and pray that we may safeguard them for our posterity.

Grant that we may continue to grow
in our grateful enjoyment of your abundant creation,
to the honor and glory of your Name,
now and for ever.

Amen.

Thanks for Family and Friends

(Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, A Book of Blessings, Ottawa, Canada: Publications Service, 1981)

Blessed are you, loving Father,
for all your gifts to us.
Blessed are you for giving us family and friends
to be with us in times of joy and sorrow,
to help us in days of need,
and to rejoice with us in moments for celebration.

Father,
we praise you for your Son Jesus,
who knew the happiness of family and friends,
and in the love of your Holy Spirit.
Blessed are you for ever and ever.

Amen.

Thanksgiving

My Jesus, I thank you with all my heart for your loving kindness to me.

Blessed and praised every moment be the most holy and divine Sacrament.

Amen.

Thanksgiving

(Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803 – 82)

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.

Amen.

The Beauty of Nature

(Walter Rauschenbusch 1861–1918)

O God, we thank you for this earth, our home;
For the wide sky and the blessed sun,
For the salt sea and the running water,
For the everlasting hills
And the never-resting winds,
For trees and the common grass underfoot.
We thank you for our senses
By which we hear the songs of birds,
And see the splendor of the summer fields,
And taste of the autumn fruits,
And rejoice in the feel of the snow,
And smell the breath of the spring.
Grant us a heart wide open to all this beauty;
And save our souls from being so blind
That we pass unseeing
When even the common thorn bush
Is aflame with your glory,
O God our creator,
Who lives and reigns forever and ever.

Amen

The Waiting TIme

John Bell (Iona Community)

You keep us waiting.
You, the God of all time,
want us to wait
for the right time in which to discover
who we are, where we are to go,
who will be with us, and what we must do.
So thank you … for the waiting time.

You keep us looking.
You, the God of all space,
want us to look in the right and wrong places
for signs of hope,
for people who are hopeless,
for visions of a better world which will appear
among the disappointments of the world we know.
So thank you … for the looking time.

You keep us loving.
You, the God whose name is love,
want us to be like you –
to love the loveless and the unlovely and the unloveable;
to love without jealousy or design or threat;
and, most difficult of all,
to love ourselves.
So thank you … for the loving time.

And in all this,
you keep us.
Through hard questions with no easy answers;
through failing where we hoped to succeed
and making an impact where we felt we were useless;
through the patience and the dreams and the love of others;
and through Jesus Christ and his Spirit,
you keep us.
So thank you …. for the keeping time,
and for now,
and for ever,

Amen.