Feast of the Baptism of the Lord Year B *Alternate* Second Reading

“In Praise of Water,” adapted from Benedictus – A Book of Blessings by John Donohue

Let us bless the grace of water:
The imagination of the primeval ocean
Where the first forms of life stirred
And emerged to dress the vacant earth
With warm quilts of color.

Let us bless the humility of water,
Always willing to take the shape
Of whatever otherness holds it,

The buoyancy of water,
Stronger than the deadening,
Downward drag of gravity,

The innocence of water,
Flowing forth, without thought
Of what awaits it,
The refreshment of water,
Dissolving the crystals of thirst.

Water: voice of grief,
Cry of love,
In the flowing tear.

Water: vehicle and idiom
Of all the inner voyaging
That keeps us alive.

Blessed be water,
Our first mother.

The words of John O’Donohue, adapted