Tag Archives: Prayers of the People

Prayers of the People: In us there is darkness

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This week the liturgical church remembers Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Christian theologian hanged on April 9, 1945 by the Nazis for his work of resistance. In addition to referencing images and phrases from the lectionary, these prayers rely heavily on Bonhoeffer’s sermons and writings, including a prayer written and shared with other convicts while he was in Tegel prison over Christmas 1943.

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Our God, where your church is troubled, homesick, ill, like a bird in a cage, give us vital urge for vital actions so we may be a living rebuke to forces of oppression.
In us there is darkness…

With Thee there is light.

Our God, where we quiver with anger at despotism and petty insults, and anxiously wait for great events, remind us and our leaders that truth is born only in freedom and give us courage to dare peace.
We are feeble of heart…

You leave us not.

Our God, we hunger for colors, for flowers, for songs of birds. Restore your creation again in soul and soil, making a way for rivers in the desert and new things that spring forth.
We are restless…

With Thee there is peace.

Our God, remembering that life is rich and short, help us throw out the rubbish of our false identities and accomplishments to accept, bear, and celebrate one another as we are.
In us there is often bitterness…

With Thee there is patience.

Our God, for those thirsting for kind words, for human company, release to them life’s enjoyment and its good sunshine. Let what they’ve learned from sorrow increase them.
So much is past our understanding…

You know the way for us.

Our God, where the old year torments our hearts, unhastening, and long days of sorrow still endure, grant every power for good to stay and guide us, comforted and inspired beyond all fear.

You, our God, make the way for us.

Prayers of the People

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Today the liturgical Christian church recognizes John Donne, a sixteenth-century English poet and priest, and reads together scriptures that peer into dark and mess to see what’s beneath. It’s also the first time I participate in the church universal through composing the Prayers of the People.

In the dark and humble season, blessings to you listeners and slow seekers, to whom this place doesn’t often feel like home.

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In the dark and humble season, Our Sustainer, grow the roots of your church to a strong, entwined foundation.

Three-personed God, be our true bread;
knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend.

In the dark and humble season, Our Father, squelch our grumbling and squandering, that all in power may serve as ambassadors of Christ.

Three-personed God, be our true bread;
knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend.

In the dark and humble season, Our Mother, bless the soil: seed, womb, resurrections gathering in tombs, that we may be nourished by the produce of the land.

Three-personed God, be our true bread;
knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend.

In the dark and humble season, Our Healer, where we are betrayed, abandoned, neglected, and where we have betrayed, abandoned, and neglected, let what was lost be found.

Three-personed God, be our true bread;
knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend.

In the dark and humble season, O Silence, release our tongues that our bones not wither away. Make for those in disgrace, those unheard, and those held down a new creation.

Three-personed God, be our true bread;
knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend.

In the dark and humble season, Our Redeemer, swaddle those we have lost, those absent from us, in the warmth of your love until you gather us again together in the home of your grace.

Three-personed God, be our true bread;
knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend.