Prayers for Palestine

Palestine is held in these prayers through war and displacement, hunger in Gaza, shelter and sanitation that fail in winter, and aid that does not arrive. Recognition and statehood come up repeatedly, as do ceasefires made and broken. Through all of it the prayers ask for a peace that lasts and for trust between neighbors.

Butterfly Prayers: For Haitian Migrants, La Palma’s Volcano, and Afghanistan’s Women (September 30, 2021)

God of limitless love, Thank you for creating us with expansive capacity for love. The heart is a vast landscape. What wonder this is that we can feel so many different emotions, seemingly conflicting, at the same time, that we can love so deeply. Sometimes in the face of all the suffering we see, we confuse love […]

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, […]

Creator of the Star-Fields: Prayers for Burkina Faso, Afghanistan, and Israel and Palestine (June 10, 2021)

Creator of the star-fields, During this new moon week, when the sky is the deepest depth of dark, the canopy of stars are especially visible in their brilliance. Pin-pricks of light on the velvet drape of night. We can see an unnameable number of stars, and there are many more we cannot see with the […]

Imagine Transformation: Prayers for Mali’s Coup, Gaza, and the Kamloops Children (June 3, 2021)

With all the pain, violence, and sorrow that we see and experience, how is it possible to not grow hard? Some days it seems nearly impossible to see compassion and hope at work in the world. In times like these, we can send compassion and hope out into the world. Loving God, we come to […]

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, […]

Though I May Speak: Prayers for a Walled World, Famine, and the Storming of the US Capitol (January 7, 2021)

Editor’s note: World In Prayer needs a few more writers and editors! Our team consists of 12-15 volunteers, from several different countries and continents. Each week, one person writes the prayers in response to international news. A second person then edits and posts the prayers online. Because we rotate who writes and edits, you would end up serving […]

A Life in Service to Others: Prayers for Yemen, India’s Migrant Workers, and Tripoli (April 2, 2020)

Nobel Peace Laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (President of Liberia from 2006 to 2018, including during the Ebola crisis) writes: Dear fellow citizens of the world, … It does not mean that we are on our own, every country for themselves. On the contrary, it is the sign of a communal response, that border closures make […]

Like Grasses Showing Tender Faces: A Prayer as the Pandemic Circles the Globe (March 12, 2020)

Every little thing is sent for something, and in that thing there should be happiness and the power to make happy. Like the grasses showing tender faces to each other, thus we should do, for this was the wish of the Grandfathers of the World. Black Elk, (1863-1950) Oh God, we read these words […]

Can We Dare to Love Like You: Prayers for Migrants Stranded off Italy and for the Righteous Few (August 15, 2019)

There is a Love that is deeper than love, that fills the world, that fuels the world. O, give thanks and sing. From Genesis 18:16-23 (Paraphrased): The Lord, having heard much outcry about the sins of the two cities, was prepared to destroy them, and all the people in them. But Abraham challenged the Lord: […]

The World Is About to Turn: Prayers for Hong Kong, Moscow Arrests, and Separated Families (August 1, 2019)

My soul cries out with a joyful shout that the God of my heart is great, and my spirit sings of the wondrous things that you bring to the ones who wait. You fixed your sight on your servant’s plight, and my weakness you did not spurn, so from east to west shall my name […]