Skip to main content

Litany for Peace

This week is the actual centenary of the Easter Rising in Dublin, and as part of our response to that and the other centenaries being marked in Ireland from 2012-22, tonight Rev. Dr. Johnston McMaster gave a lecture helping us to make "God-Sense" of it all, in the different world that is Ireland 100 years on. In it he asked a number of questions including "Does violence ever bring peace?" challenging the place of the myth of redemptive violence in Christian thinking. As a partial response to that I thought I would post this Litany for Peace from yesterday morning's broadcast Service on Radio Ulster when we were reflecting on Jesus' challenging promise: "Blessed are the Peacemakers..."

Prince of Peace
deliver us
From those who use violence to impose their will on others.
From those who stir others up to use violence to achieve their ends.
From those who turn a blind eye to violence and injustice because it doesn’t affect them directly.
From the mindset that might is right and the end justifies the means.
Prince of Peace
deliver us
From simplistic divisions into us and them, wherever the dividing lines are drawn.
From those who use division and fear as a means of garnering support for their position.
From endless and unproductive cycles of resentment and recrimination.
From the tendency to use words to wound and the desire to win at all costs.
Prince of Peace
deliver us
From the confusion of peace with order and justice with legalism.
From the folly of thinking we have all the answers and have nothing to learn from anyone
From the use of your word as a justification for our prejudices
From divisions in your body that bring shame on your name and make a mockery of your command to love one another
Prince of Peace
deliver us
From the pain of the past, confusion in the present and fear of the future.
Prince of Peace
deliver us
From the limitations of our own knowledge, the selfishness of our desires and the tendency to blame others for our failings
Prince of Peace
deliver us
By your words of forgiveness uttered on the cross
Prince of Peace
deliver us
By your victory over death in your resurrection from the grave
Prince of Peace
deliver us
By your Spirit breathed upon us
Prince of Peace
deliver us
We pray this for ourselves, our province, our nation, our world,
looking forward to that time when your Kingdom of perfect Peace comes in all its fullness
On earth as it is in heaven
AMEN

Shalom
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Woman of no Distinction

Don't often post other people's stuff here... But I found this so powerful that I thought I should. It's a performance poem based on John 4: 4-30, and I have attached the original YouTube video below. A word for women, and men, everywhere... "to be known is to be loved, and to be loved is to be known." I am a woman of no distinction of little importance. I am a women of no reputation save that which is bad. You whisper as I pass by and cast judgmental glances, Though you don’t really take the time to look at me, Or even get to know me. For to be known is to be loved, And to be loved is to be known. Otherwise what’s the point in doing either one of them in the first place? I WANT TO BE KNOWN. I want someone to look at my face And not just see two eyes, a nose, a mouth and two ears; But to see all that I am, and could be all my hopes, loves and fears. But that’s too much to hope for, to wish for, or pray for So I don’t, not anymore. Now I keep to myself And by that
2 comments
Read more

Psalm for Harvest Sunday

A short responsive psalm for us as a call to worship on Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday, and given that it was pouring with rain as I headed into church this morning the first line is an important remembrance that the rain we moan about is an important component of the fruitfulness of the land we live in: You tend the land and water it And the earth produces its abundance. You crown each year with your bounty, and our storehouses overflow with your goodness. The mountain meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are filled with corn; Your people celebrate your boundless grace They shout for joy and sing. from Psalm 65
3 comments
Read more

Anointed

There has been a lot of chatter on social media among some of my colleagues and others about the liturgical and socio-political niceties of Saturday's coronation and attendant festivities, especially the shielding of the anointing with the pictured spoon - the oldest and perhaps strangest of the coronation artefacts. Personally I thought that was at least an improvement on the cloth of gold canopy used in the previous coronation, but (pointless) debates are raging as to whether this is an ancient practice or was simply introduced in the previous service to shield the Queen from the TV cameras, not for purposes of sacredness, but understandable coyness, if she actually had to bare her breast bone in puritan 1950s Britain. But as any church leader knows, anything performed twice in a church becomes a tradition. All this goes to show that I did actually watch it, while doing other things - the whole shooting match from the pre-service concert with yer wumman in that lemon-
2 comments
Read more