Prayers of
the People for the Fourth Sunday in Lent
Written by the Rite-13 Group
Lord God, we know that you know the needs of everyone. We do not have to tell you who is sick, who
is in trouble, who needs to be remembered. But we have heard the story of your son, Jesus
Christ, how he saw the blind man.
Help us now we pray, in our blindness. We
lift our hearts to you, Holy God, so that you can open our blind eyes and see
all those who are forgotten in this world.
✙ We ask for your help in remembering how many places there are in the world
where God’s Church thrives. Help
us to remember congregations of people of all denominations who strive to do
your will and make known your saving love.
We remember especially all those people in the churches in our cycles of
prayer:
In our Trinity parish.....(insert
names in this and the following categories)
In our Diocese....
In the Anglican Communion...
In our partner church, Mbugani
Parish in Tabora, Tanzania, and also for Daudi Birusha, Angelina Birusha, and Mpungu, evangelists
in Mbugani Parish.
Lord, help us to remember them
and keep them in our hearts.
✙ We have forgotten many of those who minister
in your Church. There are so many that
work tirelessly to spread your Good News, and so we hold up to you the
sometimes forgotten lay workers, and bishops, priests and deacons, all of whom
work tirelessly to bring about your kingdom.
We are especially thankful for the ministry of our priests, Don, Horace,
Frank and William.
Lord, help us to remember them
and keep them in our hearts.
✙ We have forgotten all
those who do not hold authority in
the governments of our nation and the world.
We want to remember all those who work behind the scenes to prepare the
leaders of the world for their work, and give them the place and the time in which
to make wise decisions. We also forget
to be thankful for our founding fathers, our constitution, our civil rights,
ability to vote in free elections, and all those in the three branches of
government who keep working to keep us free and safe.
Lord, help us to remember them
and keep them in our hearts.
✙ We do not
want to forget all those who are involved in conflicts around the globe. We want to remember those people especially
in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Congo, and those places in the United States where
there is strife. We especially want to
remember all the civilians that get caught in the middle of war. We also want to continue to remember all
those in the armed forces, especially . ...(insert names in
this category)
Lord, help us to remember them
and keep them in our hearts.
✙ We forget
also to be thankful for the good things that God has given us. We have so much to be grateful for. We often forget that because of God’s
generous provision, we have warm houses to sleep in with plumbing and
electricity. We have enough food to eat,
freedom, and loving families. We are
thankful for the communities in which we live.
We want to keep all these blessings in mind, while at the same time
praying in hope, that we can help, in any way you set
before us, those who are not as fortunate as we are.
Lord, help us to remember them
and keep them in our hearts.
✙ We often
forget the value of our environment. We
throw away so much, we pollute so much.
Please teach us to be better keepers of your creation: the endangered
species, the ozone layer, the trees, and the animals, both wild and
domesticated, on whom we depend so highly. We want to remember all hunters and all who
hunt, that they may be humane and fair.
We pray for zoologists and environmentalists who keep working towards a
respectful and healthy world. We pray
for all the scientists who are trying to find new forms of energy so that we
will not destroy what God has given us.
Lord, help us to remember them
and keep them in our hearts.
✙ We forget
many who are in trouble and in distress.
We continue to hold in prayer all those who are homeless and who have
been injured in the tsunami in Southeast Asia.
It will take a very long time to rebuild homes and lives that have been
torn apart. Let us not let them fade
away from our memory just because we have sent our donation, and have moved on
to other concerns. We forget all those
who are locked away in jail, some scheduled to die. We forget the millions of homeless, sick,
hungry, lonely, rejected and persecuted children and adults all over the
globe. Our minds and hearts are not big
enough to be able to absorb the enormity of all of this, but keep us alert and
open, and keep us praying for them all.
Lord, help us to remember them
and keep them in our hearts.
✙ We have
forgotten many of those who are sick.
Some are alone in nursing homes, some are in mental institutions, and
some are disabled and confined to their homes or hospitals. Help us to remember all those with cancer or
other long term illnesses. And please God, let us not forget all those who care for the sick.
We want to continue
to remember those whom we love who are in need of healing:
Insert names
We add also these names
now, either silently or aloud, of the sick for whom we
have forgotten to pray....
Lord, help us to remember them
and keep them in our hearts.
✙ How easy it is to forget
those who have died. They fade from our
memories. We owe so much to so many that have gone before us, but we forget many of
them. We want to remember now all those
saints, prophets and martyrs of God’s Church that have no special day or
commemoration and whose names have been lost to us over the centuries. We also want to remember all those loved ones
who have made it possible for us to live our comfortable lives today. We want to remember especially victims of
disasters, victims of wars, our past presidents,
Grandma T, Grandpa Francis and Grandpa Gene.
(add other names
from the parish family)
We also speak these names
now, either silently or aloud, of those who have died for whom we have
forgotten to pray....
Lord, help us to remember them
and keep them in our hearts.
(Concluding collect)
We bring to you today our concerns and prayers for those
who, through our blindness, we have forgotten.
We know only too well that in these prayers we offer this morning there
will still be so many that are forgotten.
Please, Lord God, help us to have our eyes continually opened more and
more to your beloved creation and your beloved people. Lead us day by day to greater awareness of,
and desire to help, those we forget, ignore, neglect, dismiss, or just simply
pass by without noticing. We pray that
the Holy Spirit will open our eyes. We
ask all these prayers in the name of your beloved son, Jesus Christ ...who saw
the blind man. AMEN