134 135 Religious Texts Prayer for Europe – for the 2019 European Parliament election Father of mankind, Lord of history, Look upon this continent, to which you have sent philosophers, lawgivers and people endowed with wisdom, precursors of that faith in your Son, fallen and risen. Look upon these nations, all these people evangelised by Peter and Paul, by prophets, monks and saints. Look at these regions, drenched in the blood of martyrs, moved by the voice of reformers. Look at these people, linked by so many bonds and ties, yet divided by hatred and war. Assist us in committing ourselves to a Europe of the Spirit, founded not just on economic treaties, but also on human and eternal values; a Europe capable of ethnic and ecumenical reconciliation, ready to welcome the stranger, respectful of human dignity. Give us the confidence to see it as our duty to encourage and promote understanding between peoples, which provides for all continents justice and bread, freedom and peace. AMEN Carlo Maria Cardinal MARTINI Hymn of Creation Then even non-existence was not there, nor existence, There was no air then, nor the space beyond it. What covered it? Where was it? In whose keeping? Was there then cosmic fluid, in depths unfathomed? Then there was neither death nor immortality, nor was there then the torch of night and day. The One breathed windlessly and self-sustaining. There was that One then, and there was no other. At first there was only darkness wrapped in darkness. All this was only unillumined cosmic water. That One which came to be, enclosed in nothing, arose at last, born of the power of knowledge. In the beginning desire descended on it - that was the primal seed, born of the mind. The sages who have searched their hearts with wisdom know that which is, is kin to that which is not. And they have stretched their cord across the void, and know what was above, and what below. Seminal powers made fertile mighty forces. Below was strength, and over it was impulse. But, after all, who knows, and who can say Whence it all came, and how creation happened? The gods themselves are later that creation, so who knows truly whence it has arisen? Whence all creation had its origin, the creator, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not, the creator, who surveys it all from highest heaven, he knows – or maybe even he does not know. From: Gebete des Hinduismus. Ausgewählt von Adel Theodor Khoury. Source of translation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasadiya_ Sukta#:~:text=The%20N%C4%81sad%C4%ABya%20S%C5%ABkta%20(after%20 the,the%20origin%20of%20the%20universe. (translation Basham 1954) A.L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India (1954).
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