World in Prayer

Sharing in God’s loving compassion for all

Prayers for Myanmar

Much of what has been prayed for Myanmar concerns the Rohingya who fled persecution into Bangladesh, the Karen sheltering along the Thai border, and the military coup of 2021 with the long repression that followed. Later prayers hold the country's fuel supply and the endurance of its people.

Give Us Eyes to See: Prayers for Journalists Under Threat, the Darien Gap, and Las Vegas (October 7, 2021)

Holy One, Help us in our struggle of claiming to know when we do not know, of disrespecting others wellbeing and thinking we do not share the same world, drive down the same streets, share the harvest, hospital beds and soldier against disasters and pandemics. Help each of us to follow Christ’s path of compassion. […]

A Prayer for a Divided World: The UN Assembly, La Palma’s Volcano, and Haitians at the Border (September 23, 2021)

Source of love and life, there are so many in need of your tender loving care. We uplift to you in prayer all who need your healing embrace in the fragile and hurting world this day. Christ, you said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.” This peace is one deeply […]

Wake the Sleepers: Prayers for Canada’s Unmarked Graves, Tigray, and a Building Collapse (June 24, 2021)

Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping; that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace. –Concluding Prayer for Compline, from The Book of Common Prayer “When evening had come, Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, […]

Lord, What Is Happening: Prayers for India’s Pandemic, Global Famine, and Mount Meron (May 6, 2021)

Lord, we thought the human world had turned a corner in the pandemic, so we watch and listen with despair at the news from India and pray and hope the same will not happen in Papua New Guinea. Lord, mighty and marvelous, what is happening? We name especially Yemen, Haiti, Syria, South Sudan and Tigray, […]

Father Earth and Mother Sky: Prayers for Indianapolis, Tigray, and India’s Oxygen Crisis (April 29, 2021)

Oh God, Our Father Earth and Mother Earth, Help us to center our hearts, our thoughts, our yearnings, to let go of past wrongs and uncertain futures, to let the air out and take a simple breath in – here in the present of your eternal time. We acknowledge the lands of our ancestors. We […]

We Long to Hide: Prayers After the Atlanta and Boulder Shootings and for Myanmar (March 25, 2021)

Dear God, You know that we sometimes long to hide.  We long to hide from the things which make our world and communities profoundly suffer.  We long to hide from the people who hurt us and those we care about.  We wish we could hide from the mounting demands from our jobs, school, and the […]

Scared to Death or Scared to Life: A Lenten Prayer After the Atlanta Shootings (March 18, 2021)

Gracious and loving God, During this season of Lent, as we journey with your Son to the cross and through the cross, we admit that we are fearful. We are scared — scared to let go, scared to join in, scared to open up.  We are scared to open our hearts, our time, our homes […]

Lessons from Cranes and Geese: El Salvador’s Election, Afghanistan, and Migrants (March 4, 2021)

As most of you know, World in Prayer is written by a team whose members take turns writing the prayers. And I, who am writing this week – I ran out of words a long time ago. Trapped in what seemed like near-isolation by the pandemic; anguished by its resulting ever-growing number of deaths and […]

Come and Fill Us with Your Peace: A Prayer as US COVID Deaths Pass 500,000 (February 26, 2021)

God, in whom we live and move and have our being, there is nothing that separates us from you, your grace, and your love. And yet, sometimes it is so hard to trust that you are at work around and within us, especially this Lenten season when it feels as if we have never left […]