Nicholas Black Elk has long been an inspiring person to me, long before his cause for sainthood was started. About a year ago I attended a prayer service hosted by a St Kateri Circle, and I was given a prayer card with the prayer listed below. I feel it is one of the most moving prayers I know and have prayed it every night since. With the recent news coming out about the tragedies at the Canadian Indian residential school system I have doubled my prayers for those who were lost in this system, and those they left behind. Both in Canada, and the similar system in the USA. May God protect their souls, and bring any healing that he can.
Grandfather, Great Mysterious One,
You have been always
and before You nothing has been.
The star nations all over the universe are yours,
and yours are the grasses of the earth.
Day in and day out, you are the life of things.
You are older than all need,
older than all pain and prayer.
Grandfather, all over the world
the faces of the living ones are alike.
In tenderness they have come up
out of the ground.
Look upon your children
with children in their arms,
that they may face the winds,
and walk the good road to the day of quiet.
Teach me to walk the soft earth,
a relative to all that live.
Sweeten my heart and fill me with light,
and give me the strength to understand
and the eyes to see.
Help me, for without you I am nothing.
Hetchetu aloh! (Amen)
Nicholas Black Elk, Servant of God
