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Prayers and Resources for Liturgy and Worship
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If the War Goes On
This is "a haunting melody (that) expresses our fears and grieves as we cry aloud to God." It was written by John Bell and Graham Maule of the Iona Community and revised for war against Iraq as "The Road to Basrah." Wild Goose Resource Group has released it for worship services asking that if you use it, you donate an equivalent "licensing fee" to a peace organization of your choice. The U.S. Peace and Justice Network of the Mennonite Church U.S.A. has put the song on its website: lyrics, accompaniments and a recording of the melody.
See http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/ifthewargoeson.html
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| Scripture | |
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The Song of Zechariah
In the tender compassion of our God,
the dawn from heaven will break upon us,
to shine on those who live in darkness,
under the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Luke 1:78-79, Song of Zechariah
| Prayers and Litanies | |
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The Prayer of St. Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon,
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light,
where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Christian Prayer for Peace
Blessed are the peacemakers
for they shall be known as
the Children of God.
But I say to you that hear,
love your enemies,
do good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you,
pray for those who abuse you.
To those that strike you on the cheek,
offer the other one also,
and from those who take away your cloak,
do not withhold your coat as well.
Give to everyone who begs from you,
and of those who take away your goods,
do not ask for them again.
And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.
Prayer for the People of Iraq
In the midst of this lamentable madness of war,
we turn to the God of Peace in Prayer.
We pray that
right relationships may be restored once again in God’s Spirit
among nations, peoples of different cultures, and religions,
and with the earth.
We pray for the people of Iraq.
Broken by the tyranny of power from inside,
and Western power from outside,
may God embrace them in
comfort beyond our imagining, and give them strength to endure.
We pray for those who call for war against the people of Iraq,
that they and we may be converted from revenge to compassion,
from hatred, to love,
from greed to kindness,
from arrogance to humility.
We pray with millions around the world
for a renewed human community,
where we may all become instruments of peace,
turning swords into plowshares,
spears into pruning hooks,
until the people of Iraq , and all nations
can sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees
and no one shall be afraid.
We pray in these days for God’s forgiveness.
When in times of conflict we treat brother and sister as enemy and
turn from the ways of Jesus, refusing:
to go the extra mile,
to turn the other cheek,
to seek justice and resist evil,
may the God who names and claims us all, forgive us.
God of Mohammed, God of Moses, God of Jesus, God of Sarah, Ruth
and Mary
hear our prayerful cry,
for a time when your image is honoured
and respected in people of
every race, religion, and region of this world,
and in the earth, our God- given home.
This is our prayer, O God, this is our Prayer. Amen
Hallett Llewellyn, Trinity St Pauls
United Church, Toronto
O God of many names
Lover of all nations
We pray for peace
in our hearts
in our homes
in our nations
in our world
The peace of your will
The peace of our need.
George Appleton, The Oxford Book
of Prayer (Oxford University Press, 1985)
O God, who would fold both heaven and earth in a single peace:
Let the design of your great love
lighten upon the waste of our wraths and sorrows:
and give peace to your Church,
peace among nations,
peace in our dwellings,
and peace in our hearts:
through your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
For all those who have fallen victim to hatred and inhumanity, for
those loved ones who are left behind to mourn, for the souls of
those whose hearts are cold, Lord, hear our prayer.
For the children who are being born into this world of conflict and violence, for women and mothers who suffer needlessly, Lord, hear our prayer.
For all those who have been forced into unemployment, who long to return to work, for all those who struggle to support their families, Lord, hear our prayer.
For the soldiers who are misguided in thinking that their bullets will bring about peace, for those who feel called to conscientiously object to military orders, Lord, hear our prayer.
For the children who cry in their beds at night and wonder 'what have I done?', for the mothers and fathers who must try to explain the unexplainable, Lord, hear our prayer.
For all the children who have died before their time, for the soldiers who allow their uniform to strip them of their humanity, for the healers who are denied the opportunity to use their gifts, Lord, hear our prayer.
For the redemption of souls of both victim and perpetrator, for those who commit themselves to the forgiveness of sins, Lord, hear our prayer.
O God,
Open our eyes that we may see the needs of others;
Open our ears that we may hear their cries;
Open our hearts that we may feel their anguish and their joy.
Let us not be afraid to defend the oppressed, the poor, the powerless,
because of the anger and might of the powerful. Show us where love
and hope and faith are needed, and use us to bring them to those
places.
Open our ears and eyes, our hearts and lives, that we may in these
coming days be able to do some work of justice and peace for you.
Amen.
Sabeel Center (Ecumenical Centre
for peace and justice, Jerusalem)
| Poems and Reflections | |
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No Longer Pray for Peace
On the edge of war, one foot already in,
I no longer pray for peace:
I pray for miracles.
I pray that stone hearts will turn to tenderheartedness,
and evil intentions will turn to mercifulness,
and all the soldiers already deployed
will be snatched out of harm's way,
and the whole world will be astounded onto its knees.
I pray that all the "God talk" will take bones,
and stand up and shed its cloak of faithlessness,
and walk again in its powerful truth.
I pray that the whole world might sit down together and share
its bread and its wine.
Some say there is no hope,
but then I've always applauded the holy fools
who never seem to give up on the scandalousness of our faith:
that we are loved by God......
that we can truly love one another.
I no longer pray for peace:
I pray for miracles.
Ann Weems, Ash Wednesday, March
5, 2003
How long
How long
Must children die in battle
Mothers combat tanks with tears
Fathers rage against armies of mass destruction
How long
Must the anguish of Vietnam
echo in El Salvador
Afganistan
Iraq
How long
Must politicians
Call for preemptive strikes
over preemptive justice
Patriots
Shout preemptive hatred
over preemptive compassion
How long
Must soldiers
Grind their heels
In the face of their own humanity
Nations
Plead last resort
As justification for the unforgivable
How long
Must the anguish of Iraq
Echo.....
In our world
And in our souls
Before
Peace dawns
And we recognize each other
Finally, as sisters and brothers
In the light of the new day
Tanya Chute, Toronto
*****
But in Whose Name?
My memory of war is all second hand
I was not at Mai Lai. I was not running down the road
with napalm etching into my flesh.
I did not watch my feet rot in trenches
or wake up with my neighbour's blood dying my shirt
or believed, somehow, that my battles lead to freedom and to peace.
I was not on a bridge in Belgrade or
at an airport in Grenada or
in a schoolroom in Baghdad or
in a factory in Dresden or
at a church in Nagasaki or
in a hospital in Stalingrad or
in an office in New York.
Nor is my memory of serving peace first hand.
I have not sat in the Gulf Peace Camp or
prayed in Chiapas or planted trees outside Hebron or
disrupted the School of the Americas or
handed out leaflets in Burma or
sat with the families in East Timor or
fasted with the wives outside Gestapo headquarters .
But I have held the children of war.
I have talked with the veterans of war.
I have added my prayers to the voices for peace.
It has to start somewhere.
In the here and now war is being waged
and in the here and now the seeds of peace are being looked for.
The war is waged in someone else's name. Not in mine.
The work for peace is in the hands of us all, including mine.
Brian Burch, Toronto, Ontario
| Benedictions | |
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Let us go in peace and proclaim to the world
God's jubilee of justice and liberation;
and may God's blessing be upon us now and forever.
Amen.
Sabeel Center
| Links to Other Resources | |
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- Excellent Mennonite resources, including a complete order of worship:
- http://peace.mennolink.org/congregations.html
- World Council of Churches prayer page
- http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/international/iraqprayers-e.html