Partnership Peace Prayer 2015

International Partnership Peace Prayer 2015

Used in the Partnership churches on Partnership Sunday, 6th September 2015.

This common prayer for peace recalls the outbreak of the Second World War 0n 1 September 1939 and unites us with our partner congregations in Hartford, Purley, Ostrava and Dessau.

(1)

‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ says Jesus Christ.

Gracious God, we long for nothing more passionately than peace in the world, in our relationships, in our hearts.

But simply longing for it cannot and must be enough.

Jesus’ word challenges us clearly and explicitly to action.

It encourages us clearly and explicitly to action.

So we pray to you, good Lord:

Help us wherever we stand up for peace and try  out non-violent ways of co-operation.

Help; us to be actively involved in creating the human, social and political conditions in which peace can develop.

Strengthen us in our efforts for reconciliation, and guard us from an attitude of resignation that says:

‘But we wouldn’t achieve anything anyway.’

(2)

The many wars, then and now, show us only too clearly how greatly peace is at risk.

We see how easily a war, once begun, can seduce people’s minds into hatred, fanaticism and violence.

Yet violence violates the real truth of our common faith, the truth of our humanity.

Violence destroys that which it purports to defend: the worth, the life, the freedom of the individual.

We pray for the worth of every person.

We pray for the right to a life lived in freedom and we think of the many refugees throughout the world.

(3)

A glance at the world fills us with anguish.

We see so much brutal and senseless terror.

With concern / disquiet we note the countless victims.

How many wounds and scars have been torn open.

We pray for the rising generation, that they develop a strong moral sense of justice and be nurtured in the ways of peace.

We pray for the encouragement of educational initiatives which open people’s minds to the solidarity of togetherness.

‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ says Jesus Christ.

written by Pfarrer Lutz-Michael Sylvester, Petruskirche, Dessau, Germany

 

 

 

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