JimN
Good Friday Prayers
In the shadow
of the cross, we see love shared in companionship around a table, but then
broken, made bloody, by greed and hate and war—that we may remember how quickly
and easily injury is inflicted through mean-spirited and loveless tendencies,
God hear our prayer:
Response: And in your love answer.
In the shadow
of the cross, we see all too often how goodness is subjected to bullying,
derision, taunts, jeers and even death, (Mahatma Gandi, Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers, a teenage girl in Steubenville, Ohio, and all
victims of violence)—that we may resist going along with the mob that mocks,
insults and hurts others, God hear our prayer:
Response: And in your love answer.
In the shadow
of the cross, we see Pontius Pilate yielding to popular pressure instead of
doing what he knew to be right—that those who have power over life and death
may administer true justice impartially and with mercy and that we may be just
and fair, even when it would be easier to cave into what we know to be wrong,
God hear our prayer:
Response: And in your love answer.
In the shadow
of the cross, we see Simon of Cyrene, an African, compelled to carry the cross,
to share the shame and pain and burden of the death of Jesus—that we will
remember all who suffer because of color, race, creed, gender, sexual
orientation, disability, social or economic status, and that God may find us
lovable and free from resentment and prejudice, God hear our prayer:
Response: And in your love answer.
In the shadow
of the cross, we see the women who loved Jesus, following behind and grieving
for him—that with Jesus we may remember women everywhere who have to watch
husbands, sons, daughters, sisters brothers, friends, or lovers go to war, for
those who mourn loved ones killed or wounded in violence not of their own
making in such places as New Town, Connecticut, Aurora, Colorado, Hurricanes
Katrina and Sandy, Iraq and Afghanistan, and all the times when daughters and
sons die much too early, God hear our prayer:
Response: And in your love answer.
In the shadow
of the cross, we see Jesus, stripped naked, hung on a cross between two common
thieves, despised, shamed, degraded, yet a man who could and did say, “Father,
forgive them; they know not what they do.”—that we may know that same dignity
and humility when we are made to suffer indignities, God hear our prayer:
Response: And in your love answer.
In the shadow
of the cross, we see the good, sacred, beautiful and true persecuted and put to
death—that as we too face times when love is broken, we may discover and know the
ways that God is near, feeling the pain and loss, God hear our prayer:
Response: And in your love answer.
In the shadow
of the cross, we see overwhelming darkness covering the whole land and the veil
of the Temple ripped in two and the death of hope—that such emptiness and pain
faced with honest courage may be the womb for a new tomorrow, God hear our
prayer:
Response: And in your love answer.
In the shadow
of the cross, we see Jesus’ body wrapped against the cold and laid to rest—that
the dead, especially those we have known and loved, those who have influenced
us for good, may have rest in God’s warm embrace, waiting for that day when all
things will be made new, God hear our prayer:
Response: And in your love answer.
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