Posts Tagged ‘forgiveness’
February 21, 2021
Matthew 1:23, 7:12, 8:16-17; Is. 53:4-6; Ps. 103
We thank you Lord for coming to be with us.
For choosing to take on our infirmities, heal our diseases, comfort our sorrows, carry our burdens, forgive our transgressions, and suffer for our inequities.
Be with us still, and stay with us, despite our many lapses.
Guide us, care for us, and teach us your ways, so we might better do for one another as you have done for us.
We confess our constant need for your presence O Lord, and praise your Holy Name.
Amen
Tags:burdens, compassion, confession, country, disease, Emmanuel, failures, forgiveness, Golden Rule, guidance, inequities, love, politics, praise, Prayer, presence, sorrow, sorrows, trangressions, United States, USA, weariness
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February 7, 2021
Forgive us Lord, for we have sinned.
We have allowed technology to command our focus and fracture our attention.
We have closed our hearts and isolated ourselves, retreating from our fellow citizens.
We have followed the false gods of money and power and celebrity, and so lost our way.
Free us O Lord to see our world as it is; open our eyes to its needs.
Free us O Lord from our loneliness; help us create connected, resilient communities.
Return us O Lord to the right paths; help us to ensure the safety, the tranquility, the dignity of all.
Let us heed your admonition to turn from evil and do good, to seek and pursue peace. (Ps 34:14)
Forgive us, and lead us, O Lord.
Amen
Tags:community, compassion, confession, country, dignity, false gods, forgiveness, peace, politics, Prayer, right paths, safety, tranquility, United States, USA
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January 31, 2021
Lord, we know you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. (Nehemiah 9:17).
Stick with us, and guide us Lord, despite our quarrelsome ways.
Give us the humility to seek out different points of view, to find the wisdom in others. (Proverbs 15:22)
Turn us from those who feed hate and fear and resentment, and towards those who are willing to come together, reason together, and find a path forward together.
Help us to be both merciful and just, ensuring the accountability necessary to protect our future.
Put us on the path of a peace founded on empathy, equality and good governance, for we know this brings both joy and prosperity.
Help us to repent, to learn from our sins, and to be better than we are.
Amen
Tags:accountability, country, empathy, equality, forgiveness, good governance, humility, justice, mercy future, partisan politics, peace, politics, United States, USA, wisdom
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December 6, 2020
You call us forward Lord,
- to repent,
- to forgive,
- to rebuild.
Guide us by the light of your love
- to a new politics,
- to a new economy,
- to a new way of being.
From our fears and sins release us, that we might have
- the vision,
- the energy,
- the compassion,
- the will,
to heal, to hope, to seek, and to be the “heroes of the future.”*
Amen
*From the papal encyclical “Fratelli Tutti” by Pope Francis, October 3, 2020, paragraph 202.
202. Lack of dialogue means that in these individual sectors people are concerned not for the common good, but for the benefits of power or, at best, for ways to impose their own ideas. Round tables thus become mere negotiating sessions, in which individuals attempt to seize every possible advantage, rather than cooperating in the pursuit of the common good. The heroes of the future will be those who can break with this unhealthy mindset and determine respectfully to promote truthfulness, aside from personal interest. God willing, such heroes are quietly emerging, even now, in the midst of our society.
Tags:compassion, country, forgiveness, healing, heroes, hope, love, politics, Prayer, repentance, United States, USA, vision
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October 11, 2020
“Show us your ways O Lord . . . “ (Ps. 25 v. 4-5)
You have shown us a better way Lord. A way of
- compassion,
- love,
- mercy,
- forgiveness,
- generosity,
- patience,
- kindness, and
- self-control.
And you have shown us the way we should not go. A way of
- factions,
- hate,
- oppression,
- anger,
- fear,
- self-absorption,
- death, and
- destruction.
Forgive our missteps and misdirection, and guide us into the better way.
Amen
Tags:anger, compassion, country, factions, fear, finding our way, forgiveness, freedom, future, generosity, greed, guidance, guide, hate, kindness, love, mercy, misdirection, opression, patience, politics, Prayer, self-control, selfishness, United States, USA
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August 16, 2020
Forgive us our inattention, Lord, to the suffering of others.
Forgive us our willingness to ignore oppression when it brings us economic gain.
Forgive us our inclination to hoard our time, talent, and treasure and to distract ourselves with trivial entertainments.
Open our eyes Lord. Show us how we can reallocate our wealth, and strengthen us to follow-through. (Lev. 25:8-17).
Open our hearts Lord. Teach us how to share and care for one another. (Acts 2:44-47, 4:32-35).
Open our minds Lord, that we might not be misled by the temptations of this world.
Help us to discern and pursue the riches of your kingdom that we might live in peace and prosper as one people, one country. (Luke 12:13-21, 1 Timothy 6:6-16, Proverbs 3:13-18, 27).
Forgive us, and guide us O Lord.
Amen
Tags:care, compassion, country, forgiveness, hoarding, inattention, oppression, politics, Prayer, reallocating wealth, suffering, temptation, United States, USA, wealth, wisdom
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August 9, 2020
Free us from our fears O Lord, so that we might embrace the freedoms we have create our future.
Freedom to move beyond prejudice, beyond partisanship, beyond the old narratives of division and anger and loss.
Freedom to grow in relationship with others.
Freedom to learn and grow in wisdom and understanding
Redeem all of your children Lord, that we might heal from the sins of our past.
Release us from ties that too tightly bind us to ritual, to place, to power, to the familiar, so that we might explore and experience the beauty of all of your creation.
Forgive us and guide us, O Lord.
Amen
Tags:country, fears, forgiveness, freedom, partisanship, politics, Prayer, prejudice, redemption, USA
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July 4, 2020
You my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature, rather serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. Galatians 5:13-15
Lord, we know that freedom isn’t free and democracy is not self-sustaining.
Both take courage, and persistence, and regard for others.
Help us to do our part.
Help us use our freedom not just to claim “liberty,” but to seek justice for all, to care for one another even if that means wearing a mask, and to reach across partisan divides with love and forgiveness.
Open our eyes and our hearts that we might free those who suffer in our economy from want and need and loss of opportunity, and find ways to prosper together.
Help us to seek your truth and serve you O Lord.
Amen
Tags:courage, democracy, forgiveness, freedom, Independence Day, justice, liberty, love, persistence, prosperity
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June 14, 2020
Lord, we know what to do for you have told us:
to love you and
to love others as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39);
to love even our enemies (Matthew 5:44);
to act justly, to love mercy, to follow with humility the path you set out (Micah 6:8);
to seek wisdom (Proverbs 3:11-24);
to do good and share with others (Hebrews 13:16);
to welcome the stranger and care for the poor (James 1:27, Zechariah 7:9-10);
to grow and bear the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-26).
But we have become polluted by the world (James 1:27),
aligned with those who divide (Romans 16:17),
entertained and misled by deceit and hypocrisy and slander (1 Peter 2:1),
entranced by the deceitfulness of wealth, and
overwhelmed by the demands of our daily lives (Matthew 13:22, Luke 8:14).
We have wandered from your ways.
Forgive us Lord.
Help us now to put our faith into action, and to build a better world.
Amen
Tags:forgiveness, humility, justice, love, mercy, moving forward, new way, partisan politics, politics, Prayer, United States, wisdom
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May 31, 2020
Come Holy Ghost, Creator blest, and in our heart take up thy rest. Come with your grace and heavenly aid, And fill the hearts which you have made.
Come Holy Ghost, Pentecost Hymn, Rabanus Maurus, 776-856.
On this Pentecost Sunday, Lord, people are dying, cities are burning, and our future is uncertain.
For generations you have put before us both a path to peace and prosperity, and one that leads to destruction and death. (Deuteronomy 30:15, Acts 2: 28).
Too often Lord we choose the wrong way, and then having lost our way, we cry out in despair. (Judges 2-10).
Yet you are ever with us and hear our cry. Your love and forgiveness are everlasting. Let them guide us forward, loosening the grip of hate and fear, inequity and greed, to a better way.
Spirit of Truth, you live in us (John 14:17), guide us to your peace.
Amen
Tags:despair, forgiveness, Holy Spirit, hope, justice, mercy, Pentecost, politics, Prayer, United States, USA
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