“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 […]
World News This Week in Prayer- Thursday, March 31, 2022
Creator God, I am so privileged that I don’t know I am! Living here in the first world it is striking to hear someone explain the difference between “relative poverty” and “absolute poverty.” We pray that we are forgiven our attempts to pray for the whole world while neglecting to centre ourselves on You. As the seasons […]
World News This Week in Prayer- Thursday, March 17, 2022
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm 73:26 Heavenly God, We fail constantly. Our very bodies fail as they are so fragile. How often have we wondered what to do, and choose the wrong action, words, or tone we take in everything […]
World News This Week in Prayer – Thursday, March 10, 2022
My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.” And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.” Ps 27:8 (New Living Translation) In stillness let us hear your voice, God. Easy to say, but hard to do. The endless whirl and explosion of thoughts in our heads force their way to grab our […]