To Bless Our Callings: Prayers Poems and Hymns to Celebrate Vocation

To Bless Our Callings: Prayers Poems and Hymns to Celebrate Vocation is an ecumenical collection that supports the callings of everyone within the Christian community. This valuable resource of over two hundred prayers blessings poems and sacred songs from diverse Christian traditions speaks to the heart of vocations richness. -Part I (Ages and Stages) gathers prayers for children teens young adults and adults in mid-life later and older adulthood. -Part II (Work and Profession) offers blessings for traditional professions and overlooked occupations--from nurses to truck drivers janitors to lawyers salespeople to stay-at-home parents. -Part III (A Year of Blessing) highlights times to preach and pray about vocation throughout the church year and cultural calendar. Drawing from research with hundreds of Christians in congregations across the country about their sense of Gods call in their lives the book fills the gap between Christianitys rich theologies of vocation and peoples pastoral needs in living out their callings. To Bless Our Callings is a perfect resource for catechists musicians worship leaders spiritual directors retreat leaders campus ministers and chaplains. Laura Fanuccis book is a theological spiritual and liturgical gem. Filled with insight into how callings relate to the stages of life paid and unpaid work and the professions and the liturgical year it provides a comprehensive and eminently usable resource for pastors religious leaders and anyone who wants to relate their faith to every aspect of human life. Fanucci draws ecumenically from numerous traditions and creates many of her own prayers and blessings to provide a wealth of wise and evocative sources for Christian worship and discernment. This book fills a large gap in the literature on worship and callings. --Douglas Schuurman Professor of Religion St. Olaf College Laura Kelly Fanucci directs an ecumenical project on vocation in congregations at the Collegeville Institute in Collegeville Minnesota. She is the author of Everyday Sacrament: The Messy Grace of Parenting (2014) Mercy: Gods Nature Our Challenge (2016) Dashed Hopes: When Our Best-Laid Plans Fall Apart (2017) and the co-author of Living Your Discipleship: 7 Ways to Express Your Deepest Calling (2015).