A Reflection through Images Vocationand The Work of Our Hands

A TIME TO REFLECT ON THE WORK OF OUR HANDS… Bless our hands... Often just appendages at the end of our arms... workers doing their job without appreciation...looked at, yet not really seen. These instruments of love have done mundane tasks, yet also create beauty. They reach out, touch, stroke, scrub, lift, grasp, gesture and guide. These hands, our hands, gifts of great importance, Blessing be on them and in them as we continue to work with them. May the fruits of their labour be good.

Contemplate the work of your hands. What is the nature of your personal vocation at ______________School? Reflect on the following images and note which ones say something to you about your vocation.

We are God’s Hands…..

In pairs share an image which said something to you about your vocation: What does the image say about you and the way God works through you as a person in this school?

Name:Christ has no Body now but yours No hands, no feet on earth but yours Yours are the eyes through which he looks Compassion on the world Yours are the feet with which he walks To do good Yours are the hands with which he blesses All the world.

All:Ours are the hands Ours are the feet Ours are the eyes We are his body Planning in the Kingdom

Name: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.

All:Lord, we commit ourselves to the work of our hands.

Name:We accomplish in our lifetime Only a fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.

All: Lord, we commit ourselves to the work of our hands. Lord, we commit ourselves to the work of our hands.

Name: No Statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith No confession brings perfection No pastoral visit brings wholeness No program accomplishes all of the Church’s mission No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

All:Lord, we commit ourselves to the work of our hands.

Name :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 capabilities.

All:Lord, we commit ourselves to the work of our hands.

Name: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 do the rest.

All: All: Lord, we commit ourselves to the work of our hands. Lord, we commit ourselves to the work of our hands.

Name:We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

All:We are workers, Not master builders, Ministers, Not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own. Ours are the hands Ours are the feet Ours are the eyes We are his body Ours are the hands Ours are the feet Ours are the eyes We are his body.Amen.