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Peace: Intercessions for 16th Sunday after Trinity Year B (Proper 20) 2012 series one

Proverbs 31.10-31, Psalm 1, James 3.13-4.3, 7-8a, Mark 9.30-37

The Collect:

O Lord, we beseech you mercifully to hear the prayers of your people who call upon you;
and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do,
and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil them…

The two books I consult most, David Adam’s ‘Traces of Glory’ (year B) and Chapman on ‘Leading Intercessions’ both agree that the theme for this week is peace.

But for a change, I am going to choose most of the prayers from ‘The Book of a Thousand Prayers’ by Angela Ashwin. The index divides her prayers on peace into peace between people and inner peace.

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The Church

O Lord God, who has called us to be your witnesses, strengthen us to make your Word known to others, through our own words and our lives, through our prayers and our gifts.

Make your church an instrument of peace, of love and of healing. We ask you to heal the dissensions which divide us from each other, and bring us back into a unity of love which may bear some likeness to the example you have sent us in your Son. And, as you are above all things, make us one through the bonds of affection so that we may be spiritually united through your peace, grace, mercy and tenderness.

May peace be within our walls and within ourselves: Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer1

The World

O God, it is your will to hold both heaven and earth in a single peace.
Let the design of your great love shine on the waste of our wraths and sorrows,
and give peace to your Church, peace among nations,
peace in our homes and peace in our hearts.2

May peace be within our walls and within ourselves: Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Our Community

Dear Father in heaven
let us be peacemakers:
more ready to call people friends than enemies
more ready to trust than to mistrust
more ready to love than to hate
more ready to respect than to despise
more ready to serve than be served
more ready to absorb evil than pass it on.
Dear Father in heaven
let us be more like Christ. 3

May peace be within our walls and within ourselves: Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Human Need and Suffering

Lord, we place in your gentle hands those who are sick in body, mind or spirit. Ease their pain, and heal the damage done to them. Be present to them through the support of friends, and in the care of doctors and nurses, and fill them with the warmth of your love,  and your peace in their hearts.

May peace be within our walls and within ourselves: Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

The Communion of Saints

We give you thanks for the victory of our Lord over death, and for the gift of eternal life. We pray for friends and loved ones, who are with you in glory.

May peace be within our walls and within ourselves: Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.2

 

 

A little extra – this is the most peaceful sacred music I know – ‘There is a balm in Gilead’: you may like to play it as you compose your own intercessions?

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1 See Psalm 122
2 From a New Zealand Prayer Book
3 From The Mothers’ Union Anthology of Public Prayers

 

 

 

1 comment on this post:

UKViewer said...
avatar

Thanks Laura

20 September 2012 06:53

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