Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. – Joel 2:28 God of our hearts, We give thanks for the dreams you place in our lives. Dreams of safer spaces and places […]
World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024
“How do you choose which news to include in the prayers?” That’s a common question those of us who take turns writing the weekly prayers get asked. Sometimes, it’s more pointed: “Why did you mention this, but not that?” But there’s neither magic nor malice involved – we are all too human. We gather news, from a […]
World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, January 4, 2024
We hope that full shalom will come when the four billion of us who believe in a Transcendent Other are converted more deeply to the enlightenment that calls us all not to kill, not to lie, not to steal, not to lust, to respect parents, and to help the needy and weak. The teaching of […]
World News This Week in Prayer- February 23, 2023
“The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices.” – Jimmy Carter Oh, Lord, you shepherd us. You follow us. You lead us through the fog of our times. We get caught up in fear and weighed down by seemingly eternal prejudices. As we enter this Lenten season […]
World News This Week in Prayer – Christmas 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 […]
World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, December 8, 2022
Ancient of Days, Somewhere in Kiev, Ukraine, a man plays his guitar with his old, faithful pup howling along, even though they sing in darkness. Somewhere in Krakow, Poland, a grandmother folds shirts, presses trousers, routines to calm her anxious heart, even as the unexpected guests in their small home yearn to return to their […]
World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, August 18, 2022
Holy One, In these times, with the world news heavily upon us, we reflect upon words from 2 Timothy: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.” (New Living Translation) Ten years ago, speaking in New York (U.S.), Indian-born British-American novelist Salman Rushdie said that […]
World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, June 23, 2022
Dearly beloved Children of God, Do you sometimes wake not to prayer, but to dread, fearing what new horror will show up in the news? Afraid even to go to church, after this week’s news of three killed in a mass shooting at an Episcopal church in Alabama, U.S., and two priests shot dead at […]
World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, May 5, 2022
Lord, where do we begin? We want to talk about the dashing of hopes, the failure of inspiration, the death of expectation. Afghanistan has fallen out of our consciousness as Ukraine falls into our attention, and now there is what’s happening in Iraq, as army and separatists clash and thousands flee. Monoculture (rubber trees) has […]
World News this Week in Prayer — Thursday, April 28, 2022
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. ” —Prayer of Saint Francis Resurrecting Christ, you turned the world upside down and […]