Let us be united in the spirit of aspiration and thanksgiving:

Eternal light, toward whose quickening dawn all generations yearn, we lift our hearts in thanksgiving for all true ministry, for those of every time and place who take upon themselves all suffering along the way, who are quick to search out first glimmerings of the justice and mercy that sleep in human hearts, who would make of their own lives a pathway to the light.

May this ministry, here begun, be quickened with understanding for all human frailty. May it touch with blessing and comfort the dreams of youth, the wistfulness of age, the loneliness and longing for human companionship in all times of life. May it affirm with courage the uniqueness of every person, and celebrate with joy the grandeur of the human spirit.

May this ministry, gifted with inner light, always look beyond itself with that divine discontent which will never rest until every child of earth is increasingly free from all prisons of the mind and the body and the spirit; until all goodness, justice, and mercy cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

In the name of all earth's children would we seek it. Amen.