Posts Tagged ‘diversity’

July 4th, 2022

July 4, 2022

Lord we thank you for our freedom and your many gifts.

O beautiful for spacious skies for amber waves of grain.*

We thank you for opportunities to grow and for a prosperous land. Help us to share so that all might thrive.

For purple mountains majesty, above the fruited plain.

We thank you for the beauty and abundance with which we are surrounded. Let it inspire and encourage us to reach out to others and share your love.

America, America, God shed his grace on thee.

We thank you for your forgiveness and mercy. May we extend that to others, forsaking tribalism, factionalism, and hyper-partisanship. Help us to love our neighbors as ourselves. (Luke 10:25-37; Galatians 3:26-29).

And crowned thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.

We thank you Lord for the many diverse peoples that make up our country. May we see the richness of your creation in this diversity and resist those who would exploit our differences and sow division.

Help us Lord to use our freedoms wisely, overcoming evil with good and serving one another with love. (Romans 12:21; Galatians 5:13).

Guide us towards peace, O Lord.

Amen

*italicized lines from the hymn America The Beautiful

Other July 4 Posts:

Freedom, 2021

Preserving Our Liberties, 2020

Pray For Our Country, 2015

Freedom From Fear, 2013

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Living Into The Light

January 3, 2021

As we start a new year, we share the following prayer from the encyclical “All Brothers” published by Pope Francis on October 3, 2020. The encyclical provides guidance for our civic lives. The prayer is titled “An Ecumenical Christian Prayer” and appears following paragraph 287. Let us commit ourselves to caring for one another and strengthening our communities.

O God, Trinity of love,
from the profound communion of your divine life,
pour out upon us a torrent of fraternal love.
Grant us the love reflected in the actions of Jesus,
in his family of Nazareth,
and in the early Christian community.

Grant that we Christians may live the Gospel,
discovering Christ in each human being,
recognizing him crucified
in the sufferings of the abandoned
and forgotten of our world,
and risen in each brother or sister
who makes a new start.

Come, Holy Spirit, show us your beauty,
reflected in all the peoples of the earth,
so that we may discover anew
that all are important and all are necessary,
different faces of the one humanity
that God so loves. Amen.

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