Thanksgiving

We raise to you, Father God, our hearts and this prayer

to thank you for all you have done for us,

for having given us light and maintained us in life, in You.

Thank you for this wonderful and fathomless universe,

que we are hardly capable of discovering and admiring.

Faced with so much grandeur, our poor but pretentious solemnities

are frankly ridiculous.

The best offering we can make is not to try and regale you

but to serve our brothers, as much as we can,

and like You, give ourselves without expecting any return or premium.

Thank you, good and loving Father,

because you move us to be generous and spendthrift,

to have a clean conscience and a coherent life.

For all that, our soul is moved to bless your name.

Memorial de the Lord's Supper

Thank you, our Father and God, for your son Jesus.

He taught us that you are not a God to fear

but a father whom we must love and be faithful to.

In the light of his life, life changed its meaning.

Since he did not want to be served but to serve,

he made himself servant of humanity

and derived all the love he had for you

in looking after his most needy brothers.

He has revealed to us that we only reach our personal plenitude

when we help your neighbours and contribute to their well being and

that the person who is greater in your eyes is not one who dominates, but one who serves.

Jesus dedicated his life with his message of liberation

and accepted the death of slaves as his last service.

Invocation to the Spirit of God

We thank you once more, holy Father,

for the footprint that your son Jesus left in his passage through our history

and his revolutionary message, that is still loud and clear

in spite of the time and manipulations of different people.

We want to imitate him, Lord, but we need your Spirit,

to place our lives in the service of our brothers.

Convince us that there is no honour in being served,

that the greatest satisfaction is feeling onself useful to others.

And also convince those who, proclaiming themselves to be your servants,

pollute your message with their vanity and hankering for power.

Bless all those who dedicate their lives in silence to the good of others

and united in the spirit with so many good and simple people,

remembering Mary, who called herself the Lord's slave,

and leaning on Jesus, our brother and guarantor,

all together we raise this prayer in your honour, our Father and God.

AMEN.