Abstract
Mothering Sunday
(suggestion is to use two voices, one male and one female)
On Mothering Sunday we thank You for the life of the Church and for all who by their preaching and teaching have opened to us the wisdom and truth of the scriptures. for the faith and friendship we share with one another and for those women and men whose good and kindly lives have shown us what it means to live by faith and not by sight.
Bless the church in this place and in every place and in its concern for the poor its compassion for the sick and its proclamation of the gospel renew the imagination and commitment of Your people in the service of Christ’s kingdom.
On Mothering Sunday we thank You for the home and family in which we were raised and for the life that has flowed down to us through parents and grandparents.
We pray for women and men bearing the responsibility of parenthood alone for those enduring the trauma of infertility and for all who have suffered heartbreak of a child still born struck down by crippling disease injured or killed by accident or violence.
On Mothering Sunday we remember Jesus brought up in a family home in Nazareth drawing the whole human family to himself on Calvary’s cross and we pray for the family of nations and for an end to conflict, poverty and injustice that so harms our common humanity
We pray God’s gifts of healing and justice for people who have suffered abuse within their home and family circle and ask God’s blessing on social workers and foster families providing support in sometimes difficult circumstances.
May Christ bless each family and bless each home and grant us the grace to be glad of each other’s gifts understanding of each other’s needs and forgiving of each other’s faults.
Mothering God passionate and strong tender and careful nurture and feed us watch over and protect us lead us and guide us and keep us in Your love now and until our journey’s end for this we pray in our Saviour’s name.
Amen.
Palm Sunday
Holy God of mystery and majesty on Palm Sunday we praise You for a Saviour who came to live among us sometimes angry sometimes tired sometimes upset yet who believed as we never have and loved as we never can and suffered as we never will.
We thank You that in Gethsemane’s garden alone and afraid he found the courage to place his life in Your hands
And we bless You that when the cheering ended Judas betrayed him Peter denied him Caiaphas sentenced him and Pilate washed his hands of him when the crowd called for Barabbas and the soldiers had done their work and Jesus breathed his last You greeted him as Your beloved Son and raised him to life.
As Holy Week draw us into the mystery of his passion that as we celebrate these mighty acts we too will place our lives in Your hands and so enter into love’s victory through our Saviour Christ.
Lord Jesus, You came to Jerusalem not as a warrior king but as the Messiah sent to heal and restore our broken world.
There are many dark places of pain and suffering where wars are fought, human rights denied, and lives are ravaged by famine and disease.
We pray for an end to conflict wherever it flares the triumph of good over evil Lord Jesus friend of the poor wrapping a towel around your waist you sought to serve rather than be served,
Be a friend to the poor of this land the homeless ones the abused and battered ones the lonely and forgotten ones the exhausted and tearful ones the ones we walk past and never notice,
Lord Jesus, healer of the sick hold in your tender love people in trouble and pain those who have lost their work, their marriage, their health, those who are losing their memory and their clarity of thought people overwhelmed by the prospects before them and who are on their knees with nowhere else to go families coming to terms with bereavement and loss that through their faith and our prayers and help they will find healing for their wounds comfort for today and good hope for tomorrow,
God of time and eternity, whose son was hailed as a king before being crowned with thorns, turn our hearts again to Jerusalem that united with Christ and with the faithful of all ages we too may enter the city not made by human hands the new Jerusalem eternal and in heaven where with You and the Holy Spirit Christ lives in glory one God, now and evermore.
Amen.