A Simple Prayer

Diana Duff of the Ministry of the Deaf here in the Diocese of Springfield (MA) was kind enough to visit my 4th grade CCD class today. Our class has been working on learning how to say "The Our Father" in Sign Language as a class project. Diana came in and did a wonderful introduction to Sign Language, as well as helped to make sure that we were on the right track with the "Our Father" project as the other teacher and I are both neophytes in the world of sign language as well.

She had us begin by signing a simple prayer:

Jesus, I love you.
I thank you.
I'm sorry.
Please help me.
Jesus, I love you.
Amen.

What a wonderful prayer - it combines praise, thanksgiving, contrition, and petition in such a simple way. Sometimes we can get so caught up with the words of our prayers. This was beautiful, both in its simplicity and in the way it was signed.

Many thanks to Diana for blessing our class today. For more information on the Ministry for the Deaf, you can email cathdeafmin@juno.com or call (413)592-4071.