Pastoral Prayer in Days of Corona
April 03, 2020
God of Grandiosity,
Master of Minutia,
LORD of Living and Loving,
Messiah of the Masses,
King of All Kingdoms,
Unifying Power of the Universe,
Father of the Fatherless,
Mother to the Motherless,
Creator of the Cosmos,
Abba of the Afflicted,
Worker of Wonders,
Savior, Sustainer, and Sovereign,
The One Who IS,
Here we stand
And fall,
And are.We welcome Your Holy Presence.
We embrace the Vision of Your Glory.
With grateful, longing, joyful, broken, wondering, wandering, hopeless, hopeful, needy, and full hearts we present our bodies, our minds, and our souls to You.
We submit our sinfulness to Your mercy.
We surrender our yesterdays, today, and tomorrows to Your grace.
We toss our lives into the arena of Your Love.
We lay our anxieties and every tormenting thought on the altar of Your refining fire.
We lay our sicknesses and vulnerabilities before you The Great Physician.
We receive Your peace.
We acknowledge and affirm that, every breath of prayer and every utterance of "God be with you" spoken as blessing and intercession includes all of these sentiments and petitions for our neighbors.
For our leaders who must navigate the ambiguities of our times and the rough seas of crisis.
God be with them...
For our helpers, our police, firefighters, and paramedics, along with, our doctors, nurses, health care providers of all kinds, sanitation workers, military, delivery people, postal employees, bankers, grocers, cooks, and all who must serve for us to continue to live with some normalcy and health.
God be with them...
For our near neighbors and our far neighbors, our friends, our co-workers, our classmates and all we see regularly when days are more routine ...
God be with them.
For our families, immediate and extended, those with whom we are in contact and those with whom we have lost contact ...
God be with them.
For our spouses and loved ones ...
God be with them.
For the vulnerable, the aged, the weak, the young, the exposed, the homeless, the poor, the under resourced and those who serve them ...
God be with them.
For the incarcerated, the prisoners, the detainees, the stranded, and the lost ...
God be with them.
For the forgotten and unmentioned ...
God be with them.
For the lonely, the broken, the suicidal, and the depressed ...
God be with them.
For the addicts who are struggling to maintain recovery ...
God be with them.
For those without families, for orphans, for widows and widowers, and those away from home and family ...
God be with them.
For the misunderstood and maligned ...
God be with them.
For those infected with this terrible virus ...
God be with them.
For the dying who are dying alone or just dying...
God be with them.
For the bereaved, especially those who cannot mourn with their communities ...
God be with them.
For prophets and priests, for saints and sinners, for everyone and for ourselves, we pray ...
God be with us.
Transform us through grace.
Deliver us by Your power.
Keep us in Your Name.
In Jesus' Name.
Amen