Reverend Arne Panula
Catholic Information Center
Washington, DC
Date of Prayer: 11/18/2014
Opening Prayer Given by the Guest Chaplain:
Heavenly Father, Lord of life and death, in this season, as days grow dark and cold, as leaves fall in the sad autumn twilight, so we recall that souls fall each day into eternity, and that one day the falling leaf will be ours.
"For here we have no lasting city, but ..... seek the one which is to come." The true measure of the present is life's end: what excites or exasperates in the moment diminishes in eternity.
And, conversely, these things that seem minute in the present––an act of kindness, a smile, a heartfelt prayer, a small sacrifice––are the grains of sand that accumulate and toward eternity become a mountain, a monument of grace.
Help us, Heavenly Father, never to lose sight of life's end, never to overlook those grains of sand but, rather, collect them for eternity's hour.
Amen.
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