Prayers for the Week of May 8, 2022

Please feel free to join us in the prayers prayed in worship Sunday, May 8, 2022:

Mothering, Fathering, Nurturing God,

you birthed into the world

all that is –

you loved us into being,

and when you gazed on your creation,

you said, “This is good.”

In all our wanderings and misadventure,

you have never left our side.

You have walked with us,

loving us,

showing us the way to wholeness and life.

All your creation gives you thanks and praise.

On this Mothering Sunday,

we give thanks for mothers

and for all who have mothered and nurtured us along the way.

We give thanks for life lived in family and community.

Help us live life together in relationships of love and justice.

We pray for the complexity of family,

for the struggle and challenge and pain that come with life together,

we pray for healing.

We pray for all who grieve the loss of loved ones,

particularly the loss of a parent or a child,

we pray for comfort, and for your abiding love.

We pray for the well-being of families –

may we work for just systems

that honor and protect and sustain all families --

for every family a living wage,

food enough and more,

for those who are unhoused, shelter,

for those who are harmed by persistent systems of injustice,

an end to those systems,

equity, opportunity,

the freedom to thrive.

We pray for the particular needs of our world in this day.

For the people of Ukraine, we pray for peace.

For a world in climate catastrophe,

we pray for repentance, healing, and a path toward sustainable ways.

We pray for the wellbeing of all women everywhere,

for systems and structures

in which women and girls can live and thrive,

for laws that honor and protect

women’s autonomy over their bodies.

We pray for all who struggle in the grind of pandemic,

and for everyone ailing in body or in spirit,

we pray for healing.

Gathered in the multitude of all who have ever called your name,

we pray the prayer that Jesus taught, saying:

Our Father/Mother, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.

Photo credit: Reinhard Weisenger, used with permission via Unsplash.