Friday Prayer: Come Thou Fount

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,

All good things pour forth from you and they become blessings in their own good time. The forces that oppose you disguise their work as your goodness, but their efforts crumble under your mercy and eternal love. You are the source of joy, the mouth of the river of life, the wellspring of the everlasting hope.

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;

I long for my soul to dance to your music, to be harmonized with you at a cellular level. Your beat, O God, is the rhythm of the desert stillness and the rush of wind through swamp reeds. Bring me into calibration with your wild cacophony and make me euphonious with your creation.

Streams of mercy, never ceasing,

The flow of your grace creates the geography of my life- the high banks, the refreshing pools, the place of reorientation when I am lost. I can perceive the edge of your plans for me, by meandering by the winding gurgling of the Water of Life.

Call for songs of loudest praise.

Amen! Amen! Amen! Lord, to whom should we go? You have the words of eternal life. There is no song that I would like to sing but Yours. I confess that my head turns at the strains of other notes, but they prove false every time. I rejoice in giving thanks and praise to You alone.

Teach me some melodious sonnet,

Shaping Spirit, I am afraid of you. I welcome you. I open myself to you through your own bidding and shaping. Make me receptive to your teaching, your tuning, your guidance, your glimpses. I wish to be part of the hymnody through which you bring freedom and restoration to the world.

Sung by flaming tongues above.

O glorious saints, you who pray for us and whose lives are now beyond our comprehension- do not cease! Your cloud of witness is a buffering reality for our souls. O angelic chorus, you who are created beings, too- knowing the pleasure of being at the service of the Holy Mystery- sing! Sing!

Praise the mount, I’m fixed upon it,