Below is a prayer of Intercession written recently for a worship service I was invited to lead. It's probably a bit long and tries to do too much, but then again if a prayer is written around the theme and reality of the Triune Love of God then it is likely to suffer from an embarrassment of riches and an overload of possibility! Yet to take the eternal inexhaustible communion of self-giving love of Father, Son and Spirit, as the pattern and paradigm of prayer, is to be called to prayer that is outwardly generous and forwardly hopeful and patiently creative. Anyway - this is one attempt to combine prayer for ourselves and for the world in a way that acknowledges the reproductive power of the Triune God in whose Love we live and move and have our being.
The photo is from the cliffs at St Cyrus. The gorgeous golden gorse, the old fishing cottage and smoke houses, and miles of sand and waves - what's not to love about a world like that, eh?
Eternal
God and Father, whose
infinite yet intimate love,
shared from all eternity between Father and Son,
is the love you have now poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
Drawn into that life of loving communion,
we pray for those in our lives, touched and transformed by love,
faithful, unselfish, generous, joyful, love.
Lifelong friends and good neighbours,
wives and husbands, parents and children,
sisters and brothers, best friends and new friends:
love overcoming differences in language, race, gender, religion,
so that in the rich life of love between Father, Son and Spirit,
we glimpse and discover love’s inexhaustible possibilities
We pray for those whose lives are broken for lack of love:
children whose safety and health come second to adult demands;
friendships ended by exploitation and backstabbing;
marriages shredded by unfaithfulness and shattered by broken promises;
families fractured by social pressures, whether poverty or affluence;
neighbourhoods where to survive love is weakness and compassion despised;
businesses
whose bottom line matters more than the welfare of their people.
We pray for Churches, and for our church which you have called to be the Body of Christ.
Give grace and imagination to embody and to model the love of God in Christ,
which is gift of the Spirit and the sign of your Presence.
Make us living conduits of your eternal love,
generously given, lovingly available, patiently faithful,
willingly sacrificial,persistently hopeful, and self-evidently joyful.
Like Jesus gives us eyes to see Zacchaeus hiding in shame;
voice to ask the name of violent terrified Legion;
courage to stand between the vulnerable victim and those holding the stones;
compassion to touch with tender risk those who like the leper are feared and excluded;
generosity to see the best in the Samaritan, and go do likewise;
reckless kindness to open our arms in welcome like the prodigal father;
faith to take our loaves and fishes and bless them to the use of others;
...and so to be perfect, as our Heavenly Father is perfect,
whose sunlight love gives life to all within your radiance
whose rain of mercy falls on each with life giving refreshment,
who radiates and rains love that warms and waters,
whose embrace holds and heals broken worlds and broken hearts alike,
and all this in Jesus name and in the power of the Spirit,
Amen
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