Gracious Love,
in whom we live and move and have our being,
Teach us how to pray as you would have us pray:
bring to mind what you would have us remember, and
give us the words to pray for what is needed.
Help us to feel your presence which is always with us.
Help us to trust that the words we use to offer our gratitudes and concerns are adequate,
and help us to trust that if we have no words,
and can only offer groans, or silence, or smiles
that your Spirit lifts these to you in all of their fulness.
Help us to trust that we feel called to pray, so that
we can tell you what is in our hearts and minds; and,
help us to trust that you also call us to pray so that
your Spirit moving within us
helps us to see as you see; to love as you love;
giving us the words to say what needs to be made real for the good of all.
Help us to trust that we are not the only one offering the prayers that are needed this day.
Help us to feel the presence of others in this room and across this land
who are also praying. Lifting up gratitudes; lifting up concerns.
Help us to feel our connection as part of the whole – so much larger than each of us alone.
Help us to trust that even before we began to pray,
you are already fully present seeking to make real
the responses that are needed to all the prayers we offer.
Grant us this day that our prayers are worthy of your goodness and your generosity.
That we have prayed big enough; that no one and nothing has been left out.
Grant us this day whatever we need to be able to live the lives that are the responses to our prayers.
Gracious one, we are grateful to you that we are not the first ones, nor the only ones, praying today.
We come before you as inheritors of a long tradition.
Over so many centuries, in so many languages, in so many ways,
people gather in community to pray.
In particular, we here today recall how many times, and in how many places,
people have gathered and shared with one voice
the prayer that Jesus teaches his followers to say …
Our Brother’s Prayer
Holy One, Holy Three
In whom we are one,
Fill our world with your wonder.
May the loving right-relations that you eternally are,
Be how we are here on earth.
May all living beings receive from their labour
All that is needed for the wellbeing of all.
Forgive us the harm our ideas and actions do,
As we receive healing from those wounded by
our stories, our laws, and our commerce.
Save us from trials that overwhelm,
And let us not be tricked into believing lies.
For the power and the glory of the kin_ship of all living things
Abide in you, now and for ever.
May it be so.
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Please credit the source as, "David Ewart, www.davidewart.ca, August 22, 2023".