World in Prayer

Sharing in God’s loving compassion for all

Prayers for Syria

Syria appears here mainly through the long war and its displacement, with families scattered into neighboring countries and beyond, health care and shelter in short supply, and religious minorities among those held in prayer. Chemical weapons, ceasefire talks and repeated negotiations are named plainly, along with thanks for those who help.

The Thinnest Silence: A Prayer About Listening for the Voice of God (September 28, 2023)

Holy One, Divine Creator, whom some name God, we pray every week for so many things: for those suffering from effects of climate change and the earthquakes, the hurricanes, the super droughts, super fires, and the super floods; for children and women abused and sold and trafficked even in our modern era of development; for […]

Prayers Like Seeds: For Sudan’s Ceasefire, Gang Violence, and Earthquake Survivors (April 27, 2023)

God of Life, These prayers, like seeds that we tuck into the soil of You. We trust You hold them all — our yearning, worry, agonies, hidden longings, and celebrations — in the fertile cocoon of Love. Each winter as we come out of long dark into the time of bud and bloom we marvel […]

Be Not Afraid: An Easter Prayer for Peace Deals and Signs of Hope (April 6, 2023)

Now the green blade rises from the buried grain, Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain: Love lives again, that with the dead has been: Love is come again like wheat arising green. When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain, Your touch can call us back to life again, Fields of […]

Hosanna, Hosanna: A Palm Sunday Prayer After a School Shooting and the El Paso Fire (March 30, 2023)

Holy One, You who rode the simple donkey through the streets as the palm branches caught the sun. We hear the echoes of Hosanna, Hosanna through time as we remember, remember… Hosanna, Hosanna which means save us. And You do save us, in each moment. Your saving presence is with us always. Closer than we […]

A Wideness in God’s Mercy: A Confession for the Global Water Crisis (March 23, 2023)

World in Prayer- Thursday, 23 March 2023 “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea”… so goes the old hymn. And we, your created ones, created to be co-creators with you, cling to this truth, Gracious One, often as a way of letting ourselves off the hook for our failure to […]

These Trees Are Prayers: For the Greece Train Crash and Iran’s Schoolgirls (March 2, 2023)

                Silence my soul, these trees are prayers. I asked the tree, “Tell me about God” then it blossomed.  — Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) In the snow-laced woods, the blossoms wait deep in the cold branch. We trust the waiting bloom is there. God we trust in your presence in […]

The Bond of Our Common Humanity: A Lenten Prayer for Ukraine and Turkey (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 […]

Free Us, Living God: After the Ohio Derailment and Michigan State (February 16, 2023)

Spirit of the living God, help us to let love lead us forward. Many of our hearts are broken. The news in the world is grim. Violence is pervasive. Like ink, slowly seeping to the edge of a cloth, we watch as it spreads, eventually damaging the whole fabric. Soothe our suffering and enable us […]

We Are Standing on Holy Ground: Prayers After the Turkey and Syria Earthquake (February 9, 2023)

“This is holy ground, we’re standing on holy ground For the Lord is present and where He is is holy.” And the commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, “take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so. (Joshua 5:15, Holy Bible, English […]

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 […]