Forgiveness

Eternal God, our Father, we need you more than we need anything else that we can think or imagine. And from the bliss that earth imparts, we turn unfilled to you again.
Forgive us for what we have been; help us to amend what we are; and by your grace enable us to go on from victory to victory toward what we can become in Christ our Lord.
We confess that we have been hard on others and easy with ourselves. We are so quick to see and to point out the failures even of those we love the best, and we overlook so completely our own faults and failures. Forgive us, Lord, and help us not to be glad when others go wrong, but to be gladdened by goodness, always eager to believe the best.
Forgive our arrogance when we demand to know and understand what only God can know and understand. Increase our faith so that we can be sure of what we hope for and have an unshaken conviction of the things we cannot see. Take away, O Lord, our false piety which causes us to say holy words without feeling the necessity of living a holy life within and in our relationships with other people.
The sorrow of the world overwhelms us at times - and then at other times we go on our way unaware of what goes on daily in hospitals and nursing homes and in the ghettos and in broken homes.
O God, let us be aware.
Let us not stumble blindly down the ways,
Just somehow getting through the days,
Nor even groping for another hand,
Not even wondering why it all was planned,
Eyes to the ground unseeking for the light,
Soul never aching for a wild-winged flight.
Please, keep us eager just to do our share.
God - let us be aware.
Make us all faithful and creative where we are and in the task to which we are called.
All that we ask is in the name of Him who still calls His disciptles to leave all and follow Him. Amen