It's amazing to me how easily old prayers spring to mind when I am back home with my siblings and my mom. For example, our breakfast prayer is probably the longest one that I've ever heard of, stemming from an early 80's Catholic program called Renew (or something like that...) It goes like this:
Bless us, oh Lord, and these Thy gifts
For which we are about to receive,
From Thy bounty,
Through Christ, Our Lord, Amen.
Good morning, good Jesus, this day is for you.
I ask for God's blessings in all things I say and do.
I offer up all of my thoughts, words, deeds, actions, and sufferings
in reparation for the sins of my past life.
Lord, we are your people, the sheep of your flock.
Heal the sheep who are wounded.
Touch the sheep who are in pain.
Clean the sheep who are soiled
and warm the lambs who are cold.
Help us to know the Father's love through Jesus the shepherd and through the Spirit.
Help us to lift up that love and show it all over this land.
Help us build love on justice and justice on love.
Help us to believe mightily, hope joyfully, and love divinely.
Renew us that we may help renew the face of the earth.
Whew! Breakfast is usually cold by the time we finish this whole thing, but we never fail to say it every morning when I'm at the farm. Even though I haven't claimed to be a Catholic since my late teens, I still faithfully follow the traditions whenever I'm with the fam...you know, when in Rome. However, there is something so beautiful about these prayers. I'm a firm believer in the benefits of blessing food, since it literally changes the vibration of your meal prior to eating it, making it more nutritious for your body.
I know that most Catholics believe that reincarnation is a bunch of nonsense, yet that last line of the second prayer always confused me. The sins of my past life? Technically, that's what confession is for, so is there another life that I'm supposed to be atoning for? Maybe so, maybe not...but it certainly makes for good pondering.
In the meantime, I'll just keep trying to do my best for this moment, this day, and this lifetime!
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It seems pretty obvious to me that the "past life" refers to the life you've lived to date, not some "previous life" as conjured by believers in reincarnation. Keep in mind that the prayer was developed at a time when confession was not as readily available as it is now in many parts of the world.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid anyone who tries to read more into "past life" than the obvious is simply TRYING to concoct something else.