World in Prayer

Sharing in God’s loving compassion for all

Prayers for Sudan

Civil war shapes most of what is prayed for Sudan, with famine, displacement and aid that struggles to arrive. Drought, floods and a landslide in the west are named, as are refugees who found little safety in neighboring countries. Thanksgiving is given for humanitarian organizations and for those who fund their work.

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 […]

The Lord’s Prayer for a Hurting World: Violence Against Women, Floods, and Global Drought (September 22, 2022)

Writer’s note: I have no idea where this version of the Lord’s Prayer came from, so I apologise for not giving credit where credit is due. I know I’ve amended it over the years, but it is something that draws me back time and again. So I am using it as a framework for this […]

Not a Spirit of Fear: A Prayer After the Attack on Salman Rushdie, and for Refugees (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 […]

Take Heart: A Prayer for Those Who Dread the News, from Church Shootings to Earthquakes (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 […]

Make Us Instruments of Your Peace: Prayers for Ukraine, Darfur, and Missing Women in Mexico (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 […]

This Little Light of Mine: A Prayer Around the Continents, One Month Into the War (March 24, 2022)

God you are light. Your light reflects within us and shines forth as we connect with one another in your Love moving through us, shining forth. All around the world we hear children in all languages sing of this light… This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it […]

Sing a New Church Into Being: A Prayer for Human Dignity, Melting Permafrost, and Water (January 13, 2022)

As the scheduled writer for this week, I, like so many others, am finding life in its beauty and complexity challenging, dispiriting, frustrating, with more questions than answers and often don’t want to hear what I think God is trying to say to me as the way forward: more of the same old, same old…? […]

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 […]

O Come, O Come Emmanuel: Prayers for Migrants, the Michigan School Shooting, and Yemen (December 2, 2021)

O Come, O Come Emmanuel God with us, We are so grateful that you are with us. In every moment of our being. The moments when we feel You beating in echo with our hearts and the moments when we feel completely alone.  We do not have to ask, You are already and always with […]

When Can We Celebrate Thanksgiving: Prayers for Migrants, Floods, and a Bus Crash (November 25, 2021)

The Lord has yet more light and truth to break forth from his word Lord, it’s been a pleasant day, in a month of pleasant days and yet I sit here shaking my head in disbelief. This pleasant day results from a much warmer than normal month.   Was there really any progress made at […]