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PDF versionA Pilgrim’s Companion Psalm
by Ed Hays on Oct. 07, 2009
The road home, O God, seems long
and at times is difficult and painful.
Grant me a holy communion, a compani9onship with others,
as I journey homeward to you.
I live in times of great trial:
an age of change sits at my door.
Without a community with others,
I can so easily loose the way,
can be led astray by illusions of holiness,
misguided by my ego’s desires.
Open my eyes to your precious gift
of the Church’s Communion of Saints.
“Saint” is a name I would never call myself,
but the treasury of my faith
teaches me about my holy birthright,
that I am part of the web of sacred communion,
uniting me with all other home-bound pilgrims
and with all who now rejoice
at their homecoming in you.
May I feed this day upon the food
of this mystic, holy communion
with those friends and fellow pilgrims
with whom I share this planet Earth,
as well as those saints now fully one with you.
May this awareness of my companion journey
with all the saints
deepen my life of prayer
and fertilize my faith in you, my Beloved.
By this communion of holy ones
may I be daily challenged
to greater compassion and charity
as I walk the way of the pilgrim.
From Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim by Ed Hays
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Prayer action suggestion:
What is the treasury of your faith? With whom do you share it? Find a way to widen your communion this week.
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Dear Rev. Fr. Hays, A prayer,
Dear Rev. Fr. Hays,
A prayer, a pilgrim psalm, from my own heart and soul along this long and pilgrim way.
May God bless you in this prayer of companionship in the way we walk alone, past dogs barking and stones thrown.
Thank you for this prayer which reminds us we are not in fact alone, we walk ever in the Communion of Saints, with whom we share this Holy Communion, in the long centuries of Saints who even now walk with us.
Thank you for writing so well, so purely, so sincerely, so holy this ineffable prayer from my own heart, incoherent and inexpressible under the dead weight of my own severely limited literary capacities.
And as Our Holy Father Saint Benedict writes near the closing of our Rule for Monks: May we all get there together unto eternal Life!
It is after all the only we will.
frère charles du désert OSB OBLAT (Congrégation de Subiaco)
frère charles i see you write
frère charles
i see you write so nicely with great literary capabilities.
i am humbled by fr. hays prayer and also by your reply in humility towards
this prayer.
fr. eddy
(mauritius island)
aahhhh at last ... someone
aahhhh
at last ... someone "knows" what i have always felt so deeply...
"May I feed this day upon the
"May I feed this day upon the food
of this mystic, holy communion
with those friends and fellow pilgrims
with whom I share this planet Earth,
as well as those saints now fully one with you."
Amen, Fr. Hays.
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