World in Prayer

Sharing in God’s loving compassion for all

Prayers for Australia

Fire and water shape much of what is prayed for Australia: bushfires and heatwaves, floods, hail and cyclones. Asylum policy and offshore detention are named, along with violence against women and mining accidents, and there is regular thanksgiving for wildlife, reefs and species returning to the wild.

It Takes a Village: Prayers for Hunger in Yemen, Afghan Girls Denied School, and a Burning World (July 27, 2023)

The phrase “it takes a village to raise a child” originates from an African proverb and conveys the message that it takes many people (“the village”) to provide a safe, healthy environment for children, where children are given the security they need to develop and flourish, and to be able to realize their hopes and […]

Help Us Trust Your Unchanging Love: A Prayer for Refugees, Human Rights, and a Changing Climate (July 13, 2023)

We love you, Lord, and we’ve heard your voice… calling us to make you real and known in the world to all whom you place in our path, undergirded by prayer. How do we pray and for what? Do you hear us? Or are we asking for the wrong things? Are we too impatient or […]

A Prayer in Many Colors: Mount Mayon, Pakistan, and Children Found in the Amazon (June 15, 2023)

God of bright yellow and green, the sun smiles on the earth, friendly and hopeful. You invite us to breathe in a new day. We hear the birds greeting one another, the squirrel’s playful chatter and in the distance there’s the sound of bullfrogs and spring peepers vying for airtime. Welcome to this fresh new […]

To Bask in Easter a While Longer: Prayers for Khartoum and Cyclone Ilsa (April 20, 2023)

Holy and Redeeming God, I want to bask in the glow of Easter Sunday a while longer. I want to believe that things are miraculously better in this world you created. I want, long for, and hope for your presence to rain down and water my weary soul. I look around and find there are […]

Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Prayers for Afghan Women and China’s COVID Wave (January 26, 2023)

Creator God, we praise you and give thanks that your son, Jesus, became a person like us and shared our concerns, joys, anxieties, and happiness. (Matthew 5:1-3)When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: […]

This Blessing Calls You Home: A Christmas Blessing and Prayer for Every Nation on Earth (December 22, 2022)

A CHRISTMAS BLESSING by Christine Valters Paintner online Abbess at AbbeyoftheArts.com Reproduced with permission This blessing dances at the doorway of light and dark, knows both as sacred: fertile womb space, miracle of blooming. This blessing breathes through those moments of labor when you too birth the holy into this fragile, luminous, hurting world as Mary […]

You Have the Truth to Set Us Free: A Thanksgiving Prayer for the Trafficked and Displaced (November 24, 2022)

“… for I am verily persuaded the Lord hath more truth yet to break forth out of His Holy Word.”  John Robinson. Lord, the news is difficult, often strange, maybe false, maybe half truth, out of context and fuelled by conspiracy.  What a relief to know that you have the truth contained within yourself; granted […]

We Bring Our Hearts’ Cries to You: Prayers for Ukraine, Turkey’s Mine Explosion, and Uganda’s Ebola (October 20, 2022)

Dearest Creator of all that is and ever will be. Guardian of Light. Giver of Breath. Judge of all deeds, seen and unseen. Infuse us with your love, gratitude, and peace. Let us feel safe in a world thriving in chaos and fear.  Help us to raise our children without prejudice. Teach us to teach […]

Grief and Hope: A Prayer After the Thailand School Shooting and the Kabul Bombing (October 13, 2022)

We long to become disciples of silence and hear in that shimmery soundlessness the voice of the One who whispers in stillness, whose singing vibrates in stones, who out of the silence calls forth a radical commitment of which we do not yet know the shape. – Christine Valters Paintner We pray to the One […]