Prayers for the Week of October 17, 2021

Please feel free to join in the prayers prayed in worship Sunday, October 17, 2021:

Accompanying God,

you have created all that is,

created us in the image of you,

and you journey with your people

through the whole of life.

You have created us for life in community,

to welcome each other

as you welcome us.

Loved by you,

and in the community of your creation,

we give you thanks and praise.

We pray this day especially

for peoples on the move.

We pray for those displaced from their homes,

from Afghanistan, and Venezuela,

from the nations of Central America,

from Syria,

for those displaced in their own homeland,

for those arriving on our borders.

We pray for shelter and a home,

for all they need to heal from trauma

and to build a new life.

May we welcome them

as you welcome us.

We acknowledge the displacements of people

within our own nation and history,

the displacement of indigenous peoples,

the enslavement of peoples,

violently taking them from their homeland.

We pray that you will open our eyes

to our participation

in American systems of racism and xenophobia.

Give us courage to help dismantle those systems,

and the humility to look to those most harmed

for direction in how we might rebuild together

something good and better.

We pray for the basic needs of all people

shelter for those who are unhoused,

food and nutrition for all who are hungry,

healing for all who are ailing in body or spirit,

companionship for all who are lonely,

comfort for those who mourn,

affirmation of the dignity and humanity of all people,

a full helping of enough,

that all your children might survive and thrive

and that we might become all you have created us to be.

Standing in connection with all creation,

in the company of all who have ever called on you,

we pray together 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.