In her new work, Vessels of Love, Joyce Rupp, one of the most popular spiritual guides of our time, offers a collection of prayers and poems addressed to readers “in the later years of life.”

Each of them is an invitation to greater faith, hope, and most of all love.

As she writes in her introduction to Vessels of Love: Poems and Prayers for the Later Years of Life: 

“Have you ever thought of yourself as a ‘vessel of love’? This image speaks to what I envision for the elderhood years … During this lifetime, whether we’ve been aware or not, a Presence of immeasurable love has been flowing through [our lives], quietly filling the vessel of our inner being. Like vats of matured wine, our ripened goodness has readied itself to move outward. . . Now is the efficacious time to tend ‘our tiny vessel’ so this graced goodness strengthens in us and benefits the life of those we encounter.”

Here, as a sample, is the first prayer in the book:

Accepting the Life I Now Have

We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

~  Joseph Campbell

Abiding Companion, what a gift you are as I participate in the continual movement of aging in my final years of life. With your graced assistance I am ready to profess my trust in your loving guidance and to accept being in this stage of elderhood. 

I renew my resolve to leave behind aspects of life that no longer fit for me, to divest myself of them in order to gain inner freedom and peace.

I value and am grateful for the experiences that brought insight, meaning and pleasure, for how they led to unimagined, personal growth.

I savor the presence and pleasure of people and events that have been part of my journey and influenced the person I have become.

I release strong clutching to the past of any leftover, negative attitudes that prevent me from entering calmly into my current situation.

I rejoice at the knowledge, insights, and wisdom that have deepened and expanded my internal and external approach to living.

I continue to resolve inner conflicts, to recognize what keeps peace away, and to accept with a firm resolve what is unchangeable.

I forego hanging onto old dreams no longer achievable due to physical limitations, because clinging to them impedes my contentment.

I embrace graced opportunities for continuing to mature in ways that bring out the best in myself and contribute to the benefit of others.

I acquiesce to what is a part of my aging process, joining countless others who experience similar effects of constant adjustment in their lives.

I nurture a spirit of wonder at the often overlooked beauty of nature and the enduring kindness residing in the human spirit.

I trust that my remaining years will contain treasures of pleasure and satisfaction if I graciously acknowledge and receive these gifts.

I see myself as a person filled with light and goodness, resplendent with ever fuller transparency and divine splendor.

Today I remind myself that you, Treasure of My Soul, dwell within me, an essence of pure goodness.  When moments of hesitancy or a reluctance to change stirs within me, gather me to your heart where I can find strength to restore my confidence and the ability to receive what awaits to revive my joy.

Robert Ellsberg is the publisher of Maryknoll’s Orbis Books.