A prayer for guidance
Come, O Word most gracious and guide your flock. Come, O Wisdom most holy and mother your children. Come, O Light most glorious and lead us to heaven. Amen.
Prayer to see God in all things
God of mystery and imagination,
help us to see you in both the unexpected and the familiar,
for surely you are present in all things.
The stranger who, from nowhere, stops to help; the beloved friend who speaks a word of comfort; the stone when lifted reveals the life beneath; the child who marvels at such a world of tiny beings,
unnoticed and essential – all these display the wonders of your love, ever present if not always known.
In these times of uncertainty and doubt, enable us to lift our eyes to heaven.
Remembering the stars are always there but that it takes the darkness to reveal them. Amen.
Prayer for communities of hope
Faithful God, open the eyes of our hearts to recognise your presence in the seemingly hopeless circumstances of life. Help us not to give up hope in the treasures of love, integrity and justice even when the news is dismal; when our institutions seem powerless against the forces of indifference and destruction; when people seem incapable of doing or even imagining goodness. Deep in the darkness of the soil, O Lord, you are feeding the shoots of a new community of hope. Amongst unseen communities, you are inspiring men, women and children to dream of, and make real, a new world that is courageous, gentle and just. Help us to value your way of being that brings true richness to life – the way of Jesus Christ.
Novette Headley, District Chair, Birmingham District
Thursday
On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me.’ (v. 37)
John 7:37-39