World in Prayer

Sharing in God’s loving compassion for all

Lord Have Mercy: Prayers for Jerusalem and Gaza, Kabul’s Schoolgirls, and Kazan (May 13, 2021)

Dear Lord, Outside my door it is spring. Winter snows cling to the mountains under a clear blue sky and there is a buzzing among the flowers of the over wintered kale. Here in the US we have celebrated Mother’s Day with the flower markets lighthearted and busy. Our celebrations seem short-lived amidst a pandemic […]

Come Now, O Prince of Peace: Advent Prayers for Ethiopia, Nigeria, and New Zealand (December 17, 2020)

Come now, O Prince of Peace, make us one body. Come, O Lord Jesus, reconcile your people. – Geonyong Lee (Tune: OSOSO) With heavy hearts, we come to you during this time of waiting, this time of Advent as we prepare for the coming of the One who is God’s incarnated Love. Only this year, […]

Teach Me Your Way: A World Teachers Day Prayer for Kyrgyzstan, Storm Alex, and Yemen (October 8, 2020)

Editor’s note:  World Teachers’ Day has been celebrated internationally on 5 October each year since 1994, commemorating the anniversary of the adoption of the 1966 ILO/UNESCO Recommendation Concerning the Status of Teachers, which establishes standards for teacher rights and responsibilities, as well as teacher preparation and support.  This year’s theme, “Teachers:  Leading in Crisis, Reimaging […]

God of Our Ancestors: A Prayer as US COVID Deaths Pass 200,000 and Wildfires Burn (September 24, 2020)

God of Our Ancestors, Since before we were born, you have knit your people into a great reimagining of purpose and life. You call us by your mercy and claim us with your truth. Even in these days of protest and pandemic, show us what it means that you are the Creator, Christ, and Comforter. […]

Help Us to Hear These Voices: Prayers for Housekeepers, Child Soldiers, and Beirut (August 6, 2020)

Dear Lord, help us to hear these voices. I pray today that my knees and back hold up.  I pray that my mom and children are ok in our two-bedroom apartment while I work at a hotel and clean 15 rooms each day. I pray that my paycheck will be enough, that my car holds […]

We Build Walls: A Prayer for Those Waiting at Borders and Drowning in the Mediterranean (November 7, 2019)

Dear Lord, Great Mystery, Comforter and Reconciler of All. In your Great Mystery you are a bulwark, a fortress and watchtower.  You protect and shield and send light forth to guide and unite. We build walls, over 70 of them across lands and around the world from the U.S.-Mexican border to the fences separating Hungary […]

Be Gentle With Us: Prayers for the Kurds, Typhoon Hagibis, and Lebanon’s Wildfires (October 17, 2019)

Be gentle with us, O Lover of Souls. Be gentle with us, for surely in this fractured and fracturing world, that above all is what we need: To (re)learn to be gentle with ourselves. To be gentle with each other. To be gentle with our planet. Be gentle with those – especially with those – […]

Ask the Animals and They Will Teach You: A Prayer for a Dying Glacier and Children in Detention (August 22, 2019)

But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? […]

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: […]