A comfort shawl or comfort lap blanket is created to bring solace and strength to those in need, whether due to illness, loss or bereavement or to help celebrate one of life's rights of passage. Made by loving hands, they are symbols of God's all-embracing love and comfort. Positive energy, prayers and good intentions directed toward the recipient are incorporated into these mantles as they are created.
Anyone facing one of life's transitions, whether it be a sad or joyous time, can benefit from being wrapped in love.
The Messenger Interfaith Prayer Center has over 60 volunteers – employees, family members and friends, who create these mantles and donate them to the Program.
To request a shawl or lap blanket, please complete our Request a Shawl Form.
Beginning to Knit Dedication
(adapted from www.shawlministry.com)
(You may want to light a candle for this prayer)
Mantle of Love, Healer of Hearts,
As we begin, we ask a blessing from all who have come before us;
whose hands have been instruments of creation and beauty;
who have used humble tools and hand-spun wool in order to provide cover and warmth
for themselves and those they loved;
who have felt, as we will feel, the yarn in their fingers;
who have seen, as we will see, the growth of the fabric;
who have heard, as we will hear, the click of the needles.
Guide our attention to stay on course.
Hold us close and ground us.
Bless, also, this yarn and these knitting needles.
May any negative energy connected to them be cast away as we cast on;
and all positive energy bound in as we bind off.
In their simplicity, may we find comfort and solace.
Bless our hands...
often just appendages at the end of our arms...
workers doing their job without appreciation...looked at, yet not really seen.
These instruments of love have done mundane tasks, yet also create beauty,
they reach out, touch, stroke, scrub, lift, grasp, gestures and guide.
These hands, our hands, gifts of great importance,
blessing be on them and in them as we begin.
May the fruits of their labor be good!
Amen
