People's Prayers for Sunday, the Seventh Week of Easter

Readings for the Seventh Sunday of Easter (Year C)

Prayers of the People

O Holy One, we pray for your Church universal;
that its members may be strengthened to carry out your mission in the world.

Give the leaders of all nations wisdom, patience, and wide hearts;
that peace and justice may reign, and all peoples flourish.

Grant safety, stability, and sufficiency to every home, neighborhood, region, and country, especially in Syria, Israel, Palestine, and Nigeria;
that every person may seek after you and find you.

We pray that your good creation may be honored and conserved;
that our children's children may enjoy the riches of nature's blessings.

We pray for all in distress, and particularly for the victims of sexual violence, the incarcerated, the abducted, the hungry, and those without access to adequate health care;
that all needs may be met through the power of your Holy Spirit and the generosity and courage of your people.

Grant the departed rest eternal;
let your never ending peace be with them, now and always.

Sunday Prayer: Knowledge

O God, all-wise in love and keeper of knowledge, who invites us through Jesus Christ to be fools so that we may be saved; grant that students everywhere may persevere in their task with clearness of head and stoutness of spirit, so that all power and glory enabled in human understanding may be finally poured out onto you; through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Sunday Prayer and Poem: Tread and Wait

O very real God, who knows our pain as fellow sufferer and sojourner along life's way, grant that we may comprehend the fullness of your risen life so that our hope may be sustained in the face of the brokenness that surrounds us; through Christ our Lord, who makes all things whole and all matters new.  Amen.

Tread, and Wait

Our Father plows furrows
ever deeper into our hearts, so that He who is in heaven
may be glorified by weary feet
trudging alongside that coming kingdom, bearing a
portion of its willed freight
the footsteps joined in happy pilgrimage wear down
this godly trail till the earth brings forth
its luminous fruit.
And so we tread on holy ground, and wait.

Sunday prayer: Springtime

O God of leafing trees and playgrounds, O Lord of the hopefulness of windy spring; Grant that we who are made new through your Son's Body the church may show forth your joy to the world with the energy and conviction of breezes, laughing kids, and sunshine; through Christ our resurrected Savior.  Amen.

Joy's Risen

Easter feels like this.  During Easter season, I'll try to find a slice of joy in each day's pie to serve briefly here!

On Sundays I'd also like to write a prayer:

O Risen One, Lord of the line separating life and death: May the power of your holy victory spread to the ends of the earth, so that all people may know the gift that is your love; through your mighty and mysterious majesty, O God, now and forever.  Amen.