World in Prayer

Sharing in God’s loving compassion for all

Prayers for Italy

Migration across the Mediterranean is the thread running longest through the prayers for Italy, with rescue at sea, closed ports, and asylum seekers awaiting welcome. Earthquakes, a bridge collapse, drought in the north, and the pandemic are named too, along with thanks for work against trafficking.

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 […]

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 […]

Let All Who Thirst Come to the Water: A Prayer in a Time of Drought (September 8, 2022)

Holy One, there is a song haunting me lately. An evocative melody. A single soprano invokes, “Oh let all who thirst, let them come… to the water.” The first time I heard it, I wept. And lately I hear it often. Unsummoned, it echoes within my soul; a lament in layers of drought. Source of […]

We Need You Now: A Prayer After the Uvalde School Shooting and the Buffalo Supermarket Massacre (May 26, 2022)

God, We need you now. We needed you yesterday. We need you today. We need you tomorrow. We need you now. We need you to do something. To stop the brutal unfathomable violence that is surfacing in every part of our world. We need you to change the hearts of lawmakers. We need you to […]

Prayers at the Year’s End: Myanmar, a Sudan Mine Collapse, and Brazil’s Floods (December 30, 2021)

Holy One, you are author of Creation. You have made both light and darkness holy. We know you in the shining spaces and in the uncertain places of night. We ask that your Holy Spirit descend upon all the forgotten or disregarded corners of this vast world. Infuse them with your abiding peace and everlasting […]

The Light of Your Presence: Advent Prayers for Kentucky’s Tornadoes, Typhoon Rai, and Haiti (December 16, 2021)

The anticipation is growing, O God. As Christmas draws near, the longing for redemption, for salvation, for the coming of Christ swells within us. Yet, even as the hope, peace, joy, and love grow in anticipation of the birth of Christ, we are reminded of the rugged realities of life. In the midst of our […]

Shine Your Light: A Diwali Prayer Against Child Marriage and for COP26 in Glasgow (November 4, 2021)

May these prayers and meditations be received by You, O Lord. Take them and bind them to your will. This is the time of Diwali or Deepawali, a Hindu festival of lights celebrated by Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and some Buddhists in the northern hemisphere in the fall. We meditate on the spiritual nature of the victory of […]

Prayers of Thanksgiving and Lament: Mars Rovers, Madagascar’s Famine, and Haiti (August 26, 2021)

The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it; for he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers. (Psalm 24:1) Holy One, you have created a magnificent universe. We raise up prayers of thanksgiving for your manifold blessings. Especially we […]