Each year on the memorial of 9/11, our memories resurface and grief is poured out. Unfortunately, fear and insecurity also tends to rise at this time, fuelled by continued terrorist threats and fear. At a time like this, it is important to turn to prayer – to pray for those who still grieve, for those who are still angry, for those who see this as a time to plan further acts of terrorism. Above all it is a time to pray for those whose lives are still vulnerable because of war and terrorism. It is a time to pray for peace, reconciliation and understanding across the seemingly impenetrable barriers that separate us.
For the tenth anniversary, I wrote a prayer which I continue to read and try to live up to each year. Others, too, write regularly for this day and I thought that this year I would post some of the best prayers and liturgies I have found that draw us towards God, towards peace and towards tolerance rather than towards fear and anger at this time. For that reason I have chosen prayers from a variety of faith perspectives, not just Christian. I find that mediating on what those who believe differently than I do think, is often a first step to reconciliation and forgiveness. Many were written for the 10th anniversary and since then but are still pertinent today.
Godspace Resources
- 10th Anniversary Memorial 9/11 Prayer
- May It Call Us to Peace and Not to War – Remembering 9/11
- Pope Francis’ Call to Peace
- Praying for Peace
- In Search of Peace by Jeannie Kendall
- Litany for 9/11 by Fran Pratt
- September 11th Remembrance by Lisa DeRosa
- Remembering September 11, 2001 by Michael Moore
Resources
- The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has links to some great prayers, liturgies and reflections.
- A collection of prayers and liturgies written for the Kentucky Council of Churches.
- Huffington Post has this great collection of prayers from different faith perspectives.
- Christine Longhurst at re:Worship has collected a number of compelling prayers and litanies including this beautiful memorial. I highly recommend taking some time to read through all of them.
- This Prayer, which I read on re:Worship, was originally posted on Engageworship.org. It is designed to help congregations reflect on their memories, and centre around God and how he meets us in tragedy. There is a PowerPoint you can download, or you could just print the words in a service booklet.
- And an almost overwhelming but great collection of resources of all kinds for 9/11 Anniversary from textweek.com
I continue to adapt my own prayer for this day as I meditate on the horrors of war and terrorism, the plight of refugees and the atrocities and useless killing and maiming that result.
God, so much violence, so much pain, so much heartache.
May our remembrances of this day instill within us a horror of war,
And help us stand against the atrocities caused by terrorism.
As we grieve with those who still mourn,
And share memories with those who cannot forget,
May we be stirred by your love and compassion for all.
As we remember those who bravely responded,
And gave their lives to save others,
May we draw strength from their selfless sacrifice.
As we stand with strangers who became neighbours that day,
Sharing and caring for people they did not know,
We give thanks for their generosity and hospitality.
May it remind us of the call to be good Samaritans,
Reaching out across race and culture to other victims of violence.
So many in our world have lost loved ones to terrorism and war,
So many have been displaced from homes and country,
May their plight fill us with a longing for peace.
Let us seek for understanding and reconciling,
And not turn from your kingdom ways.
Above all God may we remember your faithfulness,
And learn to trust in your unfailing love.
Amen
Here in the Northern hemisphere summer is coming to a close and students are getting ready to go back to school. There are some great prayers and liturgies out there to help prepare our hearts and minds for the coming season. The list below is gathered from a variety of faith perspectives and different countries. If there are other resources you think should be added please let me know.
Godspace
- Praying with School Supplies by Lilly Lewin
- Blessing of the Backpacks by Emily Huff
- Back to School Prayers by Lilly Lewin
- Back to School – 10 Tips and Prayers for Teachers and Students
- Back to School – 10 Tips to Help You Prepare Spiritually
- Back to School – Adding and Subtracting by Lilly Lewin
Resources from the US
- This Back to School Prayers from Concord Pastor is a great collection of prayers for students, teachers and parents.
- I love this Back to School Liturgy which can be downloaded in pdf form. It focuses on new beginnings while acknowledging the challenges of fears and frustrations.
- Prayer Resource For Schools contains some beautiful prayers for starting the year including the one at the top of this post.
- Some inspirational prayers from Pray for Schools
- From We Are That Family
- And from beliefnet.com – good set of slides with a back to school prayer – very annoying adds included though.
Global Resources
- From Australia: prayers for use by teachers – Lasallian Education Service
- From Ireland:
- Opening of School Year Mass.doc – SchoolEthos.ie
- The Diocese of Kerry in Ireland has some great prayers that you can download in both text and powerpoint form, including this one:
A Prayer at the Beginning of the School Year
What will this year bring? We do not know; it will bring its usual times of work and play, experiences of success and failure, all the things that are part of school life.
It is a new beginning; the planting of a seed that will grow for a year, the seed of fruit that will blossom in times to come. It is a new hope; hope for good work, for successful results, for friendship, for fun, for learning. In this coming year, may there be learning, prayer and fun. May there be hard work, faith and friendship. May no one in this school be lonely; may no one be left out in class; may no one suffer through the others here.
Amen.
As we begin this year in hope, in prayer and in friendship, may the Lord begin it with us, be with us during it, and successfully bring it to its conclusion.
I have had so much to share over the last few months that I have not had time or space to post some of the prayers I have written for the Light for the Journey Facebook page. So here are a few of the most popular from the last month that have not appeared as separate posts on the blog.
The living Spirit of love enflame you.
Drink it in.
Let it soak into your bones.
Allow it to flow freely
From your mind to your heart.
Let it penetrate your place of deepest longing
And illumine the shadows with light.
————————————————-
Lord Jesus Christ,
I drink in your glory of presence
and am filled with the water of life.
It quenches my thirst,
and refreshes my soul.
Like rain after drought,
it cleanses me,
and washes away the sin,
that clings to my heart.
Lord Jesus Christ
I drink in the wonder of your presence
and am made new.
————————————————
This morning I am looking out my window on our first cloudy day for quite a while. Like most people, I love sunshine and relish the long cloudless days that are often part of summer even here in the Pacific Northwest. But even more than that, I love the sunshine that radiates through the clouds, and the solitary beams that light up the sky with rainbow colours.
Thinking about this reminded me of a comment from one of my Facebook friends this morning.
Some days I am not sure if my faith is riddled with doubt, or whether, graciously, my doubt is riddled with faith.
Doubt has played a very important place in my faith. Without doubt I would never have questioned the assumptions of my early faith and been challenged to get out of my comfort zones and explore the new possibilities God was presenting to me. Without doubt my faith would have stagnated and been stunted.
So often when I have struggled with doubts and not been sure of whether I had any faith left, suddenly it has shone through like sunlight through the clouds, illuminating everything in my life with a breathtaking radiance that only God can create.
Give reign to doubt. It is so often the voice of the Holy Spirit, prompting you to ask questions about life and faith that you have never thought of before.
As you think about that this morning you may like to listen to this video which I first posted several years ago, of Thomas Merton speaking about doubt in his life.
I think that the title of this post says it all. It’s time to dance and sing and clap your hands. Together we have done it! I just wanted to extend a big thank you for those of you who contributed to our kickstarter campaign. Our target was $5,000 and we raised $5,300. Hopefully we will be able to launch our e-course based on my book Return to Our Senses in November. We will keep you updated. Prayers appreciated as we move forward with this.
by Christine Sine
Tom and I have just returned from a trip to Mayne Island B.C. and my head is buzzing with all that I have reflected on and learned during my time away. It was a rich and fulfilling time and over the next few days I plan to share some of my reflections with you.
This year to aid my contemplation I decided to do some rock painting. Specifically I decided to paint some Celtic patterns that would focus my prayers and my thoughts. This is a creative exercise that we often offer to attendees at our Celtic retreat, but because of my involvement in the retreat programme, I rarely have time to participate.
The exercise proved to be far more powerful than I had expected. I started with the simple Celtic symbol above, drawn from one of our books on Celtic art. Then I decided to get more adventurous and paint a Celtic cross – not an easy exercise but one that I thoroughly enjoyed. The cross now sits on my desk and I continue to reflect on it and all that God is teaching me through it.
During our time away I started to add words that reflect what the cross of Christ means to me. I started with love, joy, peace and grace, but this morning added mercy, and forgiveness. I suspect that in the next few days more words will be added reflecting what the cross of Christ has meant to me.
My cross is nowhere near perfect, but as I gazed at it this morning I realized how fitting that was. After all my view of the cross, its power, its pain and its beauty is nowhere near perfect either. I keep discovering new depths of meaning and purpose in it. I keep unveiling new ways in which I need to bow before it and absorb its messages for my life and for the world in which I live.
I think that by the time I am done this stone will be crowded with words and resounding with meaning and memories. It is an exercise I would heartily recommend to you and don’t worry if the result isn’t perfect. God probably wants to keep working in your life too.
Sunset, last evening on Mayne Island
Tom and I have just returned home from a wonderful time of rest and relaxation on Mayne Island B.C. Both of us are returning feeling refreshed and renewed and more aware than ever of the incredible privilege of our lives. So many in our world are held captive by violence, disease and despair. Others are bound by resentment and anger, imprisoned not by physical walls but by their own refusal to enjoy life as it is.
While we were away, I have been reading Home Tonight: Further Reflections on the Parable of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen. Like his Return of the Prodigal Son, this book revolves around Nouwen’s reflections on Rembrandt’s painting The Return of the Prodigal Son, but this one has more to say about the older son than the younger, more to say about resentment than dissipation.
Resentment, the curse of the faithful, the virtuous, the obedient, and the hardworking, settles itself in the human heart and causes havoc. That is why it’s important to think and reflect upon it. All of us who give our lives for loved ones, work hard, and objectively have many virtues to be praised, are sometimes not really free from the burden of resentment in our hearts. (59).
Nouwen goes on to say:
So the one in the story who in many respects did the objectively good thing, the person who was praised as the “good son” as compared with the “bad one”, the one who stayed home, worked hard, was obedient to the old father, and was faithful, ended up being as lost spiritually as the younger guy who ran off and dissipated his inheritance. But the elder was lost in a very different and complex way. Unlike the dissipation of the younger, the elder was far away from home emotionally because of resentment. (61).
How many of us never feel we belong in the family of God because of resentments that eat at our hearts? How often do we refuse to come home into the intimate love of God because we will not let go of our resentments and the anger they engender? How often do we react as the elder son did:
He was angry then and refused to go in, and his father came out and began to urge him to come in; but he retorted to his father, “All these years I have slaved for you and never once disobeyed your orders, yet you never once offered me so much as a kid for me to celebrate with my friends.”
I can think of a number of resentments that have held me captive over my lifetime and I have spent the last few days thinking about them and letting go, I hope, of the last vestiges of their bondage in my life. Naming those resentments and reliving their burden, now with the knowledge that I am indeed a beloved child of God has been very liberating for me. Placing myself inside rather than outside the circle of God’s love and kinship has totally changed my perspective on so much of what I do and who I am. Above all it has made it possible for me to celebrate and join in God’s joy at the return of so many prodigals I have known.
Slave or child of the living God, it is often a matter of perspective. I can deliberately and resentfully stand outside the circle of God’s loving embrace and refuse to recognize who I am and even more tragically who God is. Resentment builds because I think God is a hard taskmaster whose authoritarian orders must be obeyed… without any expectation of remuneration. Sadly in this frame of mind I can refuse to accept the freely given gifts of a generous God who longs to draw us into the eternal family.
So many of the privileges of my life are only shared by a small percentage of our world’s population. Few in our world will ever live, like I do, a life without hunger, health, housing or economic hardship. But there is one privilege that is open to all of us, the wonder of being embraced by the God of love, who longs to welcome home all who have strayed from a knowledge of our inclusion in the divine family.
So my question for all of us today is: Where does the resentment of the elder son still hold you bound? What do you need to do to release those resentments and recognize yourself once more as a beloved child of God?
Let us affirm today,
that we are made in the image of the eternal one.
Loving, compassionate, generous,
Co-creators with the holy one.
Collaborators with the maker of all things.
Let us affirm today,
That we are sons and daughters of the faithful one.
Brothers and sisters of the saving one,
Beloved children of the infilling one.
Let us affirm today,
That God fills us,
God empowers us,
God sustains us.
Without God nothing has purpose.
We belong to God.
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