Make of me a rainbow

O Lord, My God: we human beings - like the seas -
are we to be tossed to and fro between the ebb and flow of the tides?

Is it true that You have established the rainbow
to be Your sign of peace, Your sign of contact to humankind.

Then create in the heavens some such mighty sign
so that it may shake the conscience of the peoples of this earth.

Make of me a rainbow,
one that contains all the colours of the spectrum
a prism to spread and scatter Your Light!

Make of me a rainbow and make it ever more so,
a sign to announce calm weather after the storms at sea.

Teach me to stretch out to grasp the Eternal,
that light upon the horizon,
that helps Heaven step down to the Earth
and the earth to lift itself unto the heavens.

Dom Helder Camara