The miracle of your being (Frederick Buechner / John O'Donohue)

The grace of God means something like,
Here is your life. You might never have been,
but you are because the party wouldn’t
have been complete without you.

--Frederick Buechner 

Blessed be the mind that dreamed the day
The blueprint of your life
Would begin to glow on earth,

Illuminating all the faces and voices 

That would arrive to invite
Your soul to growth. 

Praised be your father and mother,
Who loved you before you were,
And trusted to call you here
With no idea who you would be. 

Blessed be those who have loved you 

Into becoming who you were meant to be, 

Blessed be those who have crossed your life 

With dark gifts of hurt and loss 

That have helped to school your mind 

In the art of disappointment. 

When desolation surrounded you, 

Blessed be those who looked for you 

And found you, their kind hands 

Urgent to open a blue window 

In the grey wall formed around you. 

Blessed be the gifts you never notice, 

Your health, eyes to behold the world, 

Thoughts to countenance the unknown, 

Memory to harvest vanished days, 

Your heart to feel the world’s waves, 

Your breath to breathe the nourishment 

Of distance made intimate by earth. 

On this echoing-day of your birth, 

May you open the gift of solitude 

In order to receive your soul;

Enter the generosity of silence 

To hear your hidden heart, 

Know the serenity of stillness 

To be enfolded anew 

By the miracle of your being. 

—John O’Donohue, For Your Birthday, 

from To Bless the Space Between Us: 

A Book of Blessings 

Happy Birthday, Fr. Pat! 

We are so blessed by the
miracle of your being! 

Image source 1: https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/why-did-god-create-everything.html 

Image source 2: Fr. Pat in India, 2023, courtesy of Paul Venables

Quotation source 

Poem source