I want to share with you a prayer we looked at together at our monthly ministers retreat this week. I’m not sure if this is really a prayer–it seems more like a poem. We prayed it to the Lord, we talked about it, we identified with some of the lines and affirmed all the others. It’s good. It’s very good. I hope it will be a blessing for you.

Prayer for the Future
Written by Ken Untener for Cardinal Dearden
(commonly known as “The Prayer for St. Oscar Romero”)

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water the seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that provides far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

Amen.