May our liberation come as we seek
to bring liberation to others, realizing
that our freedoms are bound together
in our common humanity.
May our pain expand our capacity
for joy, our brokenness lead to
realizations of beauty within, our
despair challenge us to cling to hope,
and our suffering invite us to love.
May we realize that God's presence
is found in the voices of the
oppressed among us.
May we learn to love ourselves as
we love the oppressed in our world,
inviting us into an experience of
liberation that is nearer to us
than ever before.
CREDIT: Nikole Lim
Lim, Nikole. 2020. Liberation is Here: Women Uncovering Hope in a Broken World. IVP.
Oh Divine Spirit, in the first chapter of Genesis it is reported that you breathed over waters of chaos and brought forth a new creation. In this time of national chaos, we need you desperately to breathe over us and bring forth something new.
Our national economic inequality causes us to weep with worry. We see adults working full time with two or three jobs just to get by! And in the midst of a pandemic, they must continue to work to survive even as they are vulnerable to disease.
We see structural racism rife in our nation in the economy, in education, in where we live.
We see hungry children struggling to thrive in a nation that is looking away from the next generation.
We see the cracks in our nation’s foundation as individualism runs rampant and our government fails to unite its people.
Oh Spirit! Come! Breathe over these waters of chaos! Break open our hearts to the suffering around us. Open our eyes that we might see with your vision. Birth in us a new creation of compassion so that grounded in community we might be the seeds of your promise. In these challenging times, we beg of you, renew the face of the earth.
CREDIT: Sr. Simone Cambell
Gracious God, we pray for courage.
We feel so small in the face of injustice.
All around us we see and endure the destruction of the earth and human lives
through racial injustice, climate injustice, and gender injustice.
We pray for those most vulnerable to this suffering.
We pray for women.
We pray for the women who have been pushed aside, silenced and made secondary.
We pray for the women of the Church who have been subordinated and oppressed, even while nourishing its foundation and people.
We pray for the Church which has participated and strengthened gender injustice throughout much of history, while women have been exploited, abused, mutilated, raped and destroyed.
We pray for all the women’s lives cut short and forgotten.
We pray in remembrance to their lives and spirits.
Yet, despite such suffering and death, we remember that women are the bearers of life.
Women are the rearers of humanity.
In the midst of gender injustice, we feel that we are not enough:
that there is no action we could take to right these wrongs;
that there is no word we could speak to change the course.
Yet, we are reminded of our unbounded promise through the miracle of our lives.
We are reminded of the unbounded courage when the Spirit enters our lives.
We ask for your Spirit to come into our lives:
That the Spirit may embrace us with love, grace and courage,
so that we might continue to walk the faithful journey,
love one another, and live into your light
as we act and speak against gender injustice.
We pray for your Spirit to fill us with courage.
Amen.
Credit: Rev. Dr. Grace Ji-Sun Kim