Rogation Wednesday - For Stewardship of Creation

O merciful Creator, your hand is open wide to satisfy the needs of every living creature: Make us always thankful for your loving providence; and grant that we, remembering the account that we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of your good gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.


Words jump out at us from that prayer: "open wide", "to satisfy", "always thankful", "loving providence", "remembering", "faithful stewards", "good gifts". With ardent longing we await the sending of the Spirit more fully into creation and into our individual lives, ever aware that, in the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins, "...nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;...Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings."