Regenerating Breath

Breath that regenerates

Come Holy Spirit, make your home in us

and make us bearers of the Spirit,

transparent to your light;

Come into us and direct our energies,

O you the gift that gives to give.

You who bring us together without confusion,

Work in the heart of your churches

so that each and everyone may recognize themselves in truth.

In work and rest,

in peace and struggle, in joy and sorrow,

be our innermost self, our source, our fountain, our life.

Uncover our faces, make us epiphanies.

Without you, without the Word, without the Father

man is nothing, he is not man,

for to be flesh without the spirit is not fully human.

Forgive our sin,

give us the ability to take responsibility for our hurt,

grant us to love the world more than we do.

May we work to reconcile it,

that we may master it and build it just.

Make us, strangers, into men found again.

Keep us away from lies and according to your promise, lead us to the whole truth.

Bless our trust, strengthen our love and bonds,

Revive our hope.

Claude Bernard – Pentecost