Each of us bears a share of responsibility for our communities, and hence for the world as a whole … Everything we do, however small,
affects the world around us.
Martin Hawes
Acknowledgements
o We acknowledge the traditional owners of this land – a rich land that sustained them and which they looked after well.
o We stand in solidarity with our ancestors in the faith – all those men and women who have gone before us and on whose shoulders we stand today.
o We acknowledge all those who have given their lives in working for a just, peaceful and sustainable planet.
o We acknowledge all with whom we live and work on this endangered planet, our brothers and sisters and all other species as well.
o We acknowledge each of us present in this group and we honour the dignity and wisdom of each one.
Reader 1
Candle Lighter 1
This is the light of Ruth, a foreigner who journeyed into the unknown for the sake of love and loyalty to Naomi, and who acted with initiative to change their lives for the better.
All
We praise God and claim Ruth’s power of solidarity with all those people who are poor and oppressed and broken.
Reader 2
Why fear the dark?
How can we help but love it
when it is the darkness
that brings the stars to us?
What’s more: who does not know
that it is on the darkest nights
that the stars acquire their greatest splendour?
(Dom Helder Camara)
Candle Lighter 2
This is the light of all people who have struggled to build bridges of hope, justice and reconciliation in a world of poverty, suspicion and war – as peacemakers, lobbyists, community workers and good neighbours.
All
We praise God and claim the activists’ power to bring about dreams.
Reader 3
Hope frees us to live in the present with joyous rebellion against all that keeps life from becoming what God intends it to be.
(Christine Vladimiroff OSB)
Candle Lighter 3
This is the light of many lives, shining through hardship, hoping in life’s difficulties, living with generosity and compassion, and committed to justice.
All
We praise God and claim the power to live in hope, in freedom and in justice.
Reader 4
The story of Presentation Sisters has often been described as “from acorn to oak” – a small seed growing to a large leafy tree whose leaves provide shade and shelter and which, in time, bears fruit. It has been a Presentation tradition to plant a seed at the start of a new foundation. Presentation beginnings are usually small and fragile. Now, for many Presentation Congregations, their endings are also experiences of smallness and vulnerability.
Candle Lighter 4
This is the light of all those Presentation Sisters who have committed themselves to eradicate poverty and injustice and who have built cultures of peace and hope where everyone is welcome.
All
We praise God and claim the power of our smallness and fragility.
Reader 5
Attend to this very day: it is life
the truest life of your life.
In its brief course lie many mysteries
Bliss is one,
The splendour of beauty is another.
Yesterday is but a dream,
tomorrow is only a vision,
but this day well spent
makes yesterday a happy dream
and every tomorrow a hopeful vision.
Attend to this very day: it is life.
(Sanskrit Prayer)
Leader: In a world filled with violence and war
All: May our hearts hold the promise of peace.
Leader: In the midst of poverty and oppression
All: May our hearts hold the dream of enough and of freedom.
Leader: In the midst of doubt and despair
All: May our hearts hold the comfort of hope.
Leader: In the midst of fear
All: May our hearts hold the gift of God’s faithfulness.
Leader: In the midst of hatred and death
All: May our hearts hold the promise of love and of life.
Leader: Let us pray …
All
We have travelled far. We have worked hard.
We have been faithful to the call to search for God
and to bring to birth justice and peace in our world.
May the wisdom we have gained give us a deeper energy and commitment to continue to be women of compassion and justice, women of wisdom and grace.
May Nano Nagle continue to be for us the model of passionate wisdom.
May Mary, the Woman of Faith, inspire us to cherish the wisdom of our experience and to ponder it in our hearts.
May the Spirit of God, the Wisdom of God be with us in the work of our hands and the work of our hearts. Amen.
Blessing
May the blessing of God go before us
May Her grace and peace abound
May God’s Spirit live within us
May Her love wrap us round
May God’s blessing remain with us always
May we walk on holy ground. Amen.
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