Hear Our Prayer. Raymond Chapman
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our homes with care and concern for one another … May our families be as the Holy Family in shared love and worship … Be ever close with the gift of your unfailing love to the mothers and children in our community.
Have mercy on the mothers who are in distress, those who have lost children through death or estrangement, those whose children are sick in body or mind … Grant them strength in their affliction and healing for those they love.
We pray for the departed who have known human love on earth and have passed into the divine love of heaven … May they be in peace and joy with blessed Mary and all the saints.
We pray in the name of Christ, who loves us as a mother loves her children.
FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT
John 11:1–45
Let us pray to God whose word is the word of life.
As Thomas and the other disciples followed their Lord in faith, give to your people the trust in him that takes away all fear … As Mary and Martha saw with their human eyes his power of resurrection, let your Church witness to his risen presence among us.
Have mercy on a world where many do not follow the way of life but choose the dark way that leads to the death of hope … May those in high places know that their power is limited and that all authority comes only from the Lord of life, the conqueror of death.
Bless our families, friends and neighbours when they are in distress and doubt … Keep us faithful to one another and to our Lord … Help us to trust in his word and to obey his commands even when the way forward is not clear to us.
Look with pity on those who mourn, especially those who feel no hope of resurrection … Strengthen all who walk in fear but are loyal to their calling … Deal tenderly with those who are at the point of death, and ease their passing.
God, in whom the dead are alive and shall never die again, receive the souls of the faithful departed … As their bodies lie in the grave, grant them eternal life in Christ, whose word they trusted in their time on earth.
We pray in the name of Christ, the Resurrection and the Life.
PALM SUNDAY
Matthew 21:1–11
Let us pray for the Church and for the world, to the Lord, the King of Glory.
As the Church rejoices in the triumphal entry of our Lord, grant to us also the spirit of repentance, and sorrow for his suffering … May we at this holy time set forward the message of his salvation and lay our minds and wills before him as an offering of faith.
Bring to a world that judges by outward signs of power the wisdom to discern where true power lies in humility and love … Open the eyes of the rulers of the nations to see the one true King and be ready to serve at his command.
Give to us and to all those around us the vision of holiness in the daily scene of work and play … Help us to find in those we too easily take for granted the image of Christ the Lord, and to honour one another as those who seek to follow in his way.
Have mercy on the sick and suffering for whom the shadow of the Cross is plainer at this time than the glory of the day and who call out not in triumph but in anguish … Give them relief in their affliction and the hope of new life.
May the voices of those who bore witness to God in this world now be blended with the eternal praise of the angels in heaven … May theirs be the song of triumph over sin and death.
We offer our prayers in the name of Christ who has come to save his people.
MAUNDY THURSDAY
John 13:1–17, 31b–35
In love and humility, let us pray to God for the Church and for the world.
Cleanse the Church from all impurity that would harm her witness … Give to all her members the spirit of mutual love that reaches out to the whole world … Make us ever faithful in celebrating and receiving the holy sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
Give grace to all who hold authority, to become as those who serve and to care more for the needs of those they rule than for their own status and power … Let all live together in peace, free from deceit and betrayal, keeping one holy fellowship.
Sanctify our meals together, that they may follow the pattern of Christ and his disciples who sat together on the night before he suffered … Help us to draw more of our acquaintance to share in the communion of believers.
Come with healing to those whose feet are stained and weary with the sins and sorrows of life … Make them clean, bring them peace, feed them with the love of Christ so that they may again find love in their own hearts.
We join our worship with those who were strengthened by the sacrament on earth and have taken their place at the heavenly banquet … Grant to us so to walk in love that we may come as those cleansed from all impurity to the throne of grace.
We make our prayers in the name of Christ who makes his people clean.
GOOD FRIDAY
John 18:1—19:42
In the sorrow and the glory of the Passion, let us pray to the Lord.
At the foot of the Cross we offer the prayers of the Church … May his people proclaim the death of Jesus Christ through word and sacrament, through teaching and example … May we be worthy to stand with Mary his Mother and the Beloved Disciple and know the price of our salvation.
We pray for the world that Christ died to save … As he was crucified outside the city, may his healing power enter the places where there is ignorance and indifference this day … May our fallen humanity be cleansed and renewed by the blood and water of his last hour.
In our homes and in our work, draw us closer together and teach us how to bear each other’s burdens … Be with all in this community who this day must work or who seek only their own pleasure, and bring them to understand the pain that was borne for them.
Comfort and heal those who stand in the shadow of death, the mothers who have seen their children die, the friends who have been separated by death, all who are dying at this time … Grant that those whose crosses are heavy may find new hope in the Cross of Christ.
We remember those who have died with Christ and have passed with him from darkness to light … Keep us mindful of our own mortality, that in our last hour we may find peace and assurance in the Cross.
Christ died for us: we trust in him alone, and pray in his name.
EASTER EVE
Matthew 27:57–66
As the memory of the Passion draws towards the joy of the Resurrection, let us pray in quiet confidence.
Now let the Church, born from sorrow and despair to a glorious hope, rest with Christ in the tomb and prepare for the day of Resurrection … As his violated body was received with loving care, so may the body of his faithful now on earth honour him with humility and reverence in their worship.
Bring to the world, so torn with violence and destruction, an ending of strife, and grant the peace that can heal its wounds … Give to the rich and powerful the spirit of compassion; bring relief to those who have nothing.
Grant to us and our families a time to pause and prepare for the celebration of our risen Lord … To all in this community, as they take their time of recreation, bring the true meaning of the day, to share the love that Jesus received from his friends in death.
Give grace to those who tend the sick and the injured, who care for the damaged minds and the broken bodies … Have mercy on all who need their help, and on those who are now dying, that the bed of death may be a bed of hope and peace.
Have mercy on those who have left their earthly bodies and come in spirit to the Kingdom that will not pass away … May Christ, who has gone before through the shadow of death, raise them up into light and life eternal.
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