Before and after a meeting

Before and after a meeting

It is usual,
Or more precisely… it was,
that every meeting or gathering of your faithful
Opens with a moment of prayer.

It’s a sound custom to give you the floor first,
But the danger, you see, is that after asking you in this way,
We debate without listening to you any further.

Come, Lord, take your place in our debates.
And since you are too discreet to interrupt us,
Instruct one or other of us to recall when necessary
The point of view you would have expressed.

Help us to listen to each other.
Preserve us from any wooden language.
Give us also the ability to listen to you
And, as at Pentecost, to welcome your tongue of fire.

Preserve us from thinking that your affairs
concern only the little world of your Church.
It is to the whole world that you have sent us,
Preserve us from forgetting it.

Time has passed.
While listening to one another,
We have tried to listen to you.
A few resolutions have been put to bed
On the blank pages of our calendars.

Now, more than ever,
referred to our responsibilities,
We need to listen to your footsteps,
Alongside ours, on the path.

Michel Wagner
Prières qui n’en ont pas l’air,
Éditions de l’Atelier, Paris, 2005.

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