Romero's Prayer

Oscar A Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador in El Salvador, who was assassinated on March 24, 1980, prayed:

It helps now and then to step back and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
It is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete.
Which is another way of saying that the kingdom of God lies beyond us.
No statement says all that should be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capability.
We cannot do everything.
And there is a sense of liberation in realising that this enables us to do something.
And to do it very well.
It may be incomplete – but it is a beginning.
A step along the way.
An opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and to do the rest.
We may never see the results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the apprentice.
We are apprentices not master builders.
We are ministers not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future that is not our own.
Holy Spirit come.
Amen