Furnace
May God in whose furnace faith is forged
In whose being beauty breathes
From whose dawning darkness flees
Shine on you
May the Father whose love for you
Beats with a rhythm time itself can’t stop
Whose presence in your exile
Is the promise of home
Whose certainties are deeper
Than the cellars of your city
Whose breath is life
Breathe on you
May the son whose story
Is a mirror of your own
Who has journeyed into darkness
To find a key to your prison
Who has dived the deepest oceans
To find pearls for your wisdom
Who has looked into your heart
And found a beauty worth the battle
Who has written your name
On a white stone carved in secret
Hold you
May the Spirit
Who has waited millennia to fill you
Who shaped the word that moved the wind
Of the morning that conceived you
Who holds the earth on which you stand
As a midwife holds a newborn
Who fully knows you
Wholly own you
So may God
The faithful Father
God the scarred Son
God the sculpting Spirit
Journey with you
Gerard Kelly, ‘Furnace’ in I See a New City: Poems of Place and Possibility (Chamine Press, 2020) pp. 50-51.
Used today in the Lectio morning prayers.
Lectio is a free app delivering morning, midday and night-time prayers every day. I used to follow it, but got out of the habit. Today a friend alerted me to this wonderful prayer - maybe it's time I thought about restarting following Lectio again.
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