Prayers for Brazil

Brazil comes into these prayers through drought, floods and mudslides, building fires and collapses, and the heavy toll of the pandemic. The Amazon and its Indigenous peoples are a steady concern, as is poverty in the cities, with thanks given for coral discoveries, scientists and leaders working for the forest.

Do Not Conform to the Pattern of This World: Prayers for Gaza, Beirut, Cuba and the Travel Moon (October 24, 2024)

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is —his good, pleasing and perfect will. — Romans 12:2 O Lord, renew our minds and with that clarity set us toward your perfect will. […]

Co-Guardians of a Fragile Planet: A Prayer in the Season of Creation for Floods, Drought, and Hunger (September 26, 2024)

“Prayer is nothing else than a sense of God’s presence.” ~ Brother Laurence (lay brother, Paris, France 1614-1691) “Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God.” ~ Mother Theresa of Calcutta (1910-1997) “We have to pray with our eyes on God and not on the difficulties.” ~ Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) “I (Jesus) tell you, […]

Transcendent and Intimate: Prayers for Sudan’s Displaced, a Sao Paulo Crash and India’s Doctors (August 15, 2024)

Holy One, you are both transcendent, stretching far beyond our understanding and intimate, closer than the air we breathe. I find comfort in that! Especially when tragedy and illness strikes close to home, it is comforting to know that I am surrounded by your love and care AND at the same time that same love […]

God of Rest, God of Renewal: Prayers for Kenya’s Protests, the Pantanal Fires and Hajj Heat (June 20, 2024)

God of rest, God of renewal, we come to you seeking to be renewed by your presence in our lives. So many of us work so very hard, and it can feel like we cannot afford to take time to rest. Too many are struggling to make ends meet, to survive, to go on for […]

May Growth Be Our Hope: Prayers for Floods in Brazil and Kenya and a Collapse in South Africa (May 9, 2024)

God of our lives, How we long for our world and our hearts to grow: To grow in faith, understanding, and questions. To grow in our hope for a better world. To grow further and wider instead of apart. To grow our lives together. To grow in love for each other. May growth be our […]

Consecrating Our Chaos: A Prayer for Religious and Spiritual Leaders Around the World (April 18, 2024)

“When you take on the confusion and the violence and you refine them, purify them into something new, you are doing what in the vocabulary of faith we call consecrating your chaos. To consecrate is to make holy, to put it into service for good. In consecrating chaos, you engage it, tame it, name it, […]

Love Come Down: Prayers for Gaza, Ukraine, Pakistan, and a Groaning Earth (February 8, 2024)

God of Love, As we turn from the light of Epiphany towards the shadowland of Lent, may we, your beloved, take comfort in the profound story of Love Come Down. Comfort in a Jesus who left the mountaintop of Transfiguration and came down into the low places of suffering and pain, power and violence, came […]

The Thinnest Silence: A Prayer About Listening for the Voice of God (September 28, 2023)

Holy One, Divine Creator, whom some name God, we pray every week for so many things: for those suffering from effects of climate change and the earthquakes, the hurricanes, the super droughts, super fires, and the super floods; for children and women abused and sold and trafficked even in our modern era of development; for […]

So Much Sorrow to Grieve: Prayers After the Morocco Earthquake and Libya’s Derna Floods (September 14, 2023)

Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? And why are you so disquieted within me? – Psalm 42:6 There is so much sorrow and so many things to grieve in our world. Help us, God, as we weep for all the suffering surrounding us. For the people of Morocco who experienced a […]

Holding the Burden Alongside Us: A Prayer for a New School Year, World Hunger, and the Hottest Summer (September 7, 2023)

O God who holds each one of us, We lift our hearts in prayer for the students around the globe who have just started a new school year. Help students, educators, and grown ups who raise children navigate the busier season and the additional stress that may bring. This time of year brings additional tasks […]