Prayers for the Seasons - Fall

Here is the first of these beautiful Preface Prayers, written by Fr. Joe Dolan, that I mentioned two posts ago. Makes me want to meet the guy. :) I also can't help but relate them to the seasons of life that we as people go through as we grow and age. He makes the autumn of my years sound lovely. :) I need to see them as more like this, rich and full, and less as a harbinger of winter and old age..

Preface for Fall

For autumn and the leaves of death
we give you thanks, O Lord, and seek to praise
that northern lands can be a glory,
and men and women can find rest from empty fields
and spilling barns.

We thank you for abundant days,
For all the richer life your Son has promised,
more than eye, taste, and even autumn can provide.

And present things: books, faces, friends' return,
the fire's dance, the shouts of play,
the scarlet maple and the distant hills.

Your gift is like a wine,
pressed down and running over,
good measure for Autumn days!

We give you thanks for banquets and for bread,
but more, that You are the One that saves
the very leaf that falls
and seeks communion with the earth.

And we are never dead,
although we sleep and winter will return.

Gather us, O Lord of the Harvest.
We are the children of your love.
We are your glory, and we give you praise
with all your angels and saints as we sing...

And at this point the musical liturgy kicks in again with the priest singing the Sanctus: "Holy, holy, holy Lord ... " or however it goes. I don't have it memorized yet. :)