Prayer in support of life (week +1)

This has been a momentous week culminating in the historical outcome of the Referendum on the 8^th Amendment. It is not for want of effort, love and prayer that tens of thousands joined in rather than stand aside and remain silent.

This is not the time or place to analyse or react. Each one is free to be silent and composed in a prayerful and mindful attitude. Ireland will never be the same again and a dramatic change has been ushered in with far reaching consequences for all of us and for generations to come. It may take a bit of time for behaviour, norms, assumptions, practices and general attitudes to ‘catch up’ more fully with the rest of the world including other European countries. However, we should be under no illusion about what is now coming down the tracks. Noble attempts will be made to ameliorate some of the worst aspects of what is being proposed. However, the tide seems unstoppable now and one has to accept that while remaining implacably pro-life in deed and word.

Come Holy Spirit and console your people at this time.

Psalm

Psalm 21(22)   A prayer of complaint

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You are far from my plea and the cry of my distress.

O my God, I call by day and you give no reply; I call by night and I find no peace.
Yet you, O God, are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.
In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you set them free.

Glory be to the Father…..

Scripture Reading

Romans 12:21

 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Intercessions

For real compassion towards everyone….

For those working in our health care services at this time….

For legislators and those in positions of influence

For the transformation of our social conditions to enable people to choose life..

Prayer of St Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.

Our Father …..

Concluding Prayers

Lord God, Thank You for creating human life in Your image.

Thank You for our lives and the lives of those we love.

Thank You for teaching us through Scripture the value You place on life.

Help us to uphold the sanctity of life in our churches and community.

Give us the strength to stand up to those forces that seek to destroy the lives of those most vulnerable, the unborn, the infirm and the elderly.

Today we commit ourselves never to be silent, never to be passive, never to be forgetful of respecting life.

We commit ourselves to protecting and defending the sacredness of life according to Your will, through Christ our Lord. Amen