Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
–St. Teresa of Avila (16th Century)
One would think that nearly 25 years after founding World in Prayer, and hundreds of people trained during that time to encounter international news and respond with prayer, taking my turn at writing these prayers would always come easily to me. Oh, I’m a good enough wordsmith to be able to compile something resembling coherent prayers each time. But the prayers God prays in me are often wordless. The prayers of the clenched jaw, or knotted gut, the gentling hand or longing heart. Prayers of the helping checkbook, or the feet that want to run away. Prayers that speak in food prepared and offered, prayers that celebrate in awe-filled photography. Prayers embodied.
Pray with lungs that barely dare to breathe with hope for the success of the peace process between Israel and Palestine. Pray for filled stomachs and safe homes, hostages returned and lives restored. Pray for the healing of the distrust born out of all the times over these centuries when promises of peace have been broken by one side or the other. Even if there are leaders or individuals or groups that still spit hate as the peace process progresses, may we breathe life into the underlying common humanity that binds all together.
Lord, hear our prayer.
Pray with gritted determination to fight fascism wherever it appears. As United States President Trump escalates his attacks against free speech and threatens imprisonment of judges and reporters and clergy who stand against him, as immigrants and citizens alike are terrorized by supposedly anti-illegal-immigrant sweeps, pray with memories of past authoritarian takeovers, of past promises of “Never again. Not to my people, not to any people.”
Lord, hear our prayer.
Pray with eyes gleaming with delight as an exhibition of modern art from Nigeria opens at the Tate Modern Gallery in London (United Kingdom). Spanning a period from 1910 to the 1990s, it features more than 50 artists from various ethnic groups plus the Nigerian diaspora, in media ranging from watercolours to photography to miniscule thorn carvings to political cartoons. (Oh, go take a look – you know you want to! Nigerian Modernism gets recognition at London’s Tate Modern)
Lord, hear our prayer.
Pray with hands longing to heal our earth, as China removes dried pangolin scales from the list of authorized ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine (effective October 2025), and an advertising campaign directed at doctors has already resulted in a substantial decrease in prescribing these medicines. Poaching and illegal trafficking in pangolin scales for traditional Asian medicines are among the primary reasons why pangolins are now critically endangered.
Lord, hear our prayer.
Pray with brains on overload, for all the places and peoples and needs and joys we never hear of or fail to absorb. Pray with forgiveness for the limitations of our human attention spans and media coverage. Count our awareness of our failed attention as prayer itself, and join it to Your outpoured love for all creation.
Lord, hear our prayer.
Pray with hearts yearning for love to take root and grow. In the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya, wild elephants are learning from orphaned elephants that had been raised then released by humans – and are starting to follow the now-adult orphans’ tradition of bringing their newborn calves to the reserve, to introduce them to the keepers. Pray that our hearts may be similarly moved to trust, and to weave community in likely and unlikely places.
Lord, hear our prayer.
Pray that our bodies may be Your body, our hands Your hands, our minds and hearts Your own.
All this we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Leave a Reply