Our God of Surprises

“The Spirit is the gift of God, of this God, our Father, who always surprises us. The God of surprises…  is a living God, a God who abides in us, a God who moves our heart, a God who is in the Church and walks with us; and he always surprises us on this path…Just as he had the creativity to create the world, so he has the creativity to create new things every day. (He)is the God who surprises”.

Pope Francis 2017

L: God of Surprises,

R: You are present in our hearts.

Astonished and Amazed

Like tulips long lying hidden

Suddenly spring forth

Making beauty out of sunlight

Like soil caught and turned,

Warm, moist, and ready for seed,

Opening its heart for growing

Like spring speaking to the day

About the goodness of the earth,

Patterning green on every plain

Like trickles of raindrops

Smoothing earth’s rough edges,

Healing hardened hillsides

Like all these quiet miracles

So is the coming of spirit,

Telling of the surge of life

Urging me to gaze again

Upon my very common days,

To look within and be amazed

Joyce Rupp

L: God of Surprises,

R: You are present in our thoughts.

L: God of Surprises,

R: You are present in our world.

God’s Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

GM Hopkins

L: God of Surprises,

R: You are present.

Prayer

God of Mercy, always present: help us to welcome you in the challenge of surprise, the joy of the unexpected and the hope that moves in our hearts.

Amen.