Prayers of Intercession & Hope

To Center Our Hearts as We Begin: Almighty and Everlasting God, this evening we commemorate the one-year milestone of the pandemic season. We have experienced significant loss, disruption, and uncertainty. We have developed and adapted to new ways of living, working, and interacting with one another. Our perspectives, priorities, and routines may have changed profoundly. Yet, You remain our refuge and our strength. Your presence and love for us remain steadfast. As we pray, may we freely offer our longings and laments of this season with the assurance of Your compassion, faithfulness, and hope.

At Home Moravian: 529 Church Street S. Creating God, we give you thanks for the gifts of this day that have enabled us already to rise, to work, to rest, to care, to create, to nourish, to be fed.

Our gratitude for these gifts joins our heartache at all the sorrows that surround us, heartache that impedes our capacity to live the life of abundance Jesus offers to us. For one year in, our community is weary with the trauma of the pandemic, and communities of color bear its uneven weight. Our grief compounds as grim milestones pass. Our relationships feel the strain of this year as exhaustion becomes our daily companion. Our anxieties persist, our fear mounts, our wonderings about the future hang with all that we cannot yet know.

Through Jesus, you invite us to come, we who are weary and heavy-laden, and you will give us rest.

And so, on behalf of all whose emotional, mental, spiritual, and relational health has suffered daily during this long season, we give these concerns to you, asking you to see and hear, to keep and carry, to hold and bear that they may rest.

Healing God, you have gone before us and behind us. You circle around us, above us, and below us.

You move in and through us, binding us ever more fully to your heart of Love. May that simple truth be enough for today, and may it enliven our tomorrows with your good news of creation and liberation, redemption and abundance, justice, and reconciliation. We pray these things in the name of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, amen.

At First Presbyterian: 300 N. Cherry Street God of love and comfort, we remember before you those who have died from the coronavirus. We are grateful for their lives and for the ways that they reflected Your image and enriched our world.

Grant them Your blessed rest of everlasting peace. In your boundless compassion, console us who mourn. Strengthen and comfort the loved ones who remain behind. Help us to be attuned to the ways that we can support and care for one another in the midst of grief. May we find hope and strength in Your promise of Resurrection and eternal life. Amen.

At Calvary Moravian: 600 Holly Avenue Our gracious Lord and heavenly Father, this has been such a trying and difficult time for all of us during the pandemic, but for some people it has been especially overwhelming. We think in particular of medical professionals who have worked tirelessly and put themselves at risk more than anyone. Thank you for their medical expertise and training as well as their caring spirits, and we praise you for their courage as they serve on the front lines of fighting this disease. Day after day they are valiant in their attempt to save as many lives as possible. We pray for your protection over them, and we ask that you also guard their families whenever they return home from work each day. We pray that your Holy Spirit will give them strength and resilience in all their endeavors, and comfort them as they grieve the passing of a patient when one dies. God of heaven, you are called the Great Physician in Scripture, and the Bible says there is healing in your wings. Bless all medical professionals as they seek to be agents of healing too. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.

At First Baptist on Fifth: 501 W. Fifth Street Almighty God, throughout this past year you have opened our eyes to appreciate those in our community who provide essential services each day. Our awareness for those who protect, prepare, and provide for us each day has challenged us to realize that so many we encounter in our daily lives have put themself at risk to care for their neighbors.

We give you thanks for first responders, those who care for our infrastructure and basic needs, those who work in grocery and retail, those who deliver mail and parcels, those who serve at non-profits, those who care for the marginalized, and so many more who we may overlook.

Continue to provide your love and grace upon all those who serve as essential workers. Ease their fears and anxieties and help us to do the same in our appreciation for all they do. May your Spirit continue to protect them in their work and provide for their daily needs.

We offer this prayer in the name of the one who invites us to a deeper understanding of who our neighbor is, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

At Centenary United Methodist: 646 W. Fifth Street Divine teacher, we lift up to you all children and their parents; students of all ages; all teachers and school staff and their families; all whose lives in education have been disrupted by this pandemic. Bring them back safely to the spaces where learning brings growth and joy. Within those spaces, revive and bless those meaningful relationships that are the ground of all true education. Bless, also, the learning that is taking place in new ways and places. For those who make decisions for educators and students, we pray your wisdom; for those most affected by those decisions, we pray patience, kindness, and peace. Amen.

At Augsburg Lutheran: 845 Fifth Street Loving God, We thank you for the many ways you have sustained and strengthened your body, the Church during this time of pandemic. By the power of your Spirit working in us, we thank you for giving us new and creative ways to share the message of your love in challenging circumstances. We pray that you will continue to use our downtown congregations as instruments of healing and reconciliation in our community and may our collective witness bring honor and glory to your name. Together may we continue to proclaim that Christ is the world’s abiding hope. Amen.

At St. Paul’s Episcopal: 520 Summit Street O God, the creator and preserver of all people, we humbly beseech you for all sorts and conditions of our human family; that you would be pleased to make your ways known to us, your saving health to all nations. More especially we pray for your holy Church universal; that it may be so guided and governed by your good Spirit, that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life.

Finally, we commend to your fatherly goodness all those who are in any ways afflicted or distressed, in mind, body, or estate; especially those suffering from the COVID-19 virus worldwide and their families, that it may please you to comfort and relieve them according to their several necessities, giving them patience under their sufferings, and a happy issue out of all their afflictions. We also pray for wise leadership at the local, state, national, and international levels, and the swift, just, and effective distribution of the vaccine. All this we beg for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

Closing Prayer of Hope: Gracious God, we give you thanks for hearing our prayers. Through the display of luminaries, we are reminded of Your eternal light that cannot be extinguished or overcome by darkness. In the midst of this difficult journey, may the light of Your love, wisdom, and hope illumine our path. By your grace, help us to reflect Your light in the world around us. Amen.