A Prayer for Hope in our Everyday, Ordinary Lives

Surprise us, O God, for we often expect so little.
Yes, you have surprised us even today.
And we stop, and bow our heads with tears of gratitude, and say thank you.
Come to us in ways we cannot predict.
O! How you amazed us again and again!
And we stop, and look up to the sky with renewed hearts, and say alleluia.
Come to us in familiar people, experiences, and words.
And we will stop and see the signs of your grace all around us.

Keep us from living as if life is repetitious--but instead:
Fire us with expectation,
Knowing that you move toward us;
With life far in excess,
far more abundant than we dare to hope or dream.
Alleluia! Amen!


(By Doris Donnelly with additions in italics by Randy Lubbers)

Prayers for Peace

Prayer for World Peace
by Sister Joan D. Chittister, O.S.B.

Great God, who has told us
"Vengeance is mine,"
save us from ourselves,
save us from vengeance in our hearts
and the acid in our souls.
Save us from our desire to hurt as we have been hurt,
to punish as we have been punished,
to terrorize as we have been terrorized.
Give us the strength it takes
to listen rather than to judge,
to trust rather than to fear,
to try again and again
to make peace even when peace eludes us.
We ask, O God, for the grace
to be our best selves.
We ask for the vision
to be builders of the human community
rather than its destroyers.
We ask for the humility as a people
to understand the fears and hopes of other peoples.
We ask for the love it takes
to bequeath to the children of the world to come
more than the failures of our own making.
We ask for the love it takes
to care for all the peoples
of Afghanistan and Iraq, or Palestine and Israel
as well as for ourselves.

Give us depth of soul, O God,
to constrain our might,
to resist the temptation of power,
to refuse to attack the attackable,
to undertsand
that vengeance begets violence,
and to bring peace - not war - wherever we go.

For You, O God, have been merciful to us.
For You, O God, have been patient with us.
For You, O God, have been gracious to us.

And so may we be merciful
and patient
and gracious
and trusting
with these others whom you also love.

This we ask through Jesus,
the one without vengeance in his heart.
This we ask forever and ever. Amen.

A Prayer attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi
St. Francis went to speak with the Sultan, rather than fight in the crusades

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy 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;
and 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,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.