Prayers for
Pentecost
The Catch the Vision Core Group is grateful to
Alan Gaunt for providing these prayers for use at Pentecost 2005. The
material remains copyright (c) 2005 Alan Gaunt and may be freely used by
local churches and individuals in their worship. It may not be resold in
any form or used for any commercial purpose without the prior permission
of the author.
Confident Approach 1
Eternal God,
we praise you
for the immensity of your
love
poured into creation.
We praise you
for your joyful power of
love
which is for ever ours
in your rushing Holy
Spirit:
the source of our being,
light that enlightens us,
and life of everything that
lives.
Let our lips, now,
be kindled with praise;
our minds be enlightened,
and our hearts set on fire
with love,
as you shine on us again
with your Spirit’s grace,
and point us towards the
future
made possible by the
sacrifice and triumph of your love
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Confident Approach 2
Spirit of God,
come into our worship
like a rising gale,
to take away our
complacency.
Come, as the breath of
life,
source, guide and goal of
creation,
to breathe new life into us
and restore our faith.
Come as an icy blast
against the destructive
heat of our enmity:
extinguish our hostility.
Come as a healing breeze,
to lift us gently
and set us on our feet
with confidence and
delight..
Fierce, wild, gentle
Spirit:
like a mother, bring us to
new birth,
as you brought Jesus from
the tomb.
Be the death of us,
be the life of us,
be the joy of us;
assure us of the presence
of our loving God,
with Jesus Christ, our
resurrected Lord.
Confident Approach 3
God of surprises,
startle us:
show yourself
in new and wonderful ways.
Show yourself as peace
which passes human
understanding;
show yourself as holy love,
searing our souls with
judgement,
but, in mercy, saving us
from condemnation.
Show yourself
in the presence of the
Resurrected Christ,
breathing on us,
saying, ‘Receive the Holy
Spirit.’
Then, in the peace and
power of the Spirit,
send us to the world
with faith, hope and love
renewed,
and give us power of
utterance,
so that people may see and
hear in us
the great things you have
done,
through Jesus Christ our
Lord.
Confession
Eternal God, your power is
not limited,
and the promises you have
made, you will keep,
even though the human race
should hinder you
for a million years.
Your love, your justice,
your peace
will prevail,
even though human beings,
like ourselves,
go on hating, killing,
torturing,
bombing each other to
despair,
and refusing to forgive.
Your mercy will conquer,
even though we ignore human
need,
create misery for earth’s
living creatures,
and desecrate the earth,
making the future bleak
for our children and
grandchildren.
Your power and promise will
not fail.
Though we are obstinate,
narrow minded and
prejudiced;
though our faith so much
resembles unbelief,
even now, begin again, in
your Holy Spirit,
to give us power of
utterance;
so that as your people,
charged with your truth,
we will be able, in spite
of ourselves,
to make known the promise
of your power
for ultimate and endless
good.
PAUSE
God says,
Now you shall see
whether my word will come
true for you or not.
Do not be afraid,
I have redeemed you,
you are my witnesses.
Thanks be to God,
through Jesus Christ our
Lord.
Intercession 1
Loving God,
whose Spirit of power and
gentleness
is for ever bringing to you
all earth’s hopeful and
desperate prayers,
receive us as we come
with our hopes and fears.
Read from the hidden depths
of our being,
those yearnings and needs
we are not even aware of
ourselves;
as we join our prayers
to the yearning prayers of
Jesus,
for peace and justice
in this deeply troubled
world
where there is so much hurt
and destruction.
We pray for an end
to the delusion of rulers
and nations,
continuing to trust in the
power of war to establish peace,
so that innocents die
and people immured to
brutality,
commit atrocities on their
fellow human beings.
Faced with images of human
nature at its worst,
and aware how so much that
is evil
arises from our own
thoughtless animosity and prejudice,
we pray, with Christ,
for your Spirit’s deep
cleansing of our own hearts and minds;
and for the healing of our
own enmity:
so that we may be sources
of reconciling love:
peace-makers,
your true daughters and
sons.
And in this hope
we dare to pray with Christ
that the time will come
when every child born
will be surrounded by love
and security
and grow up in joy and
confidence.
We pray for the peace of
the world:
not for easy, complacent,
uncaring peace,
but your peace,
beyond human understanding,
which still challenges
complacency and indifference,
but brings strength to
weakness,
joy to grief,
and confident assurance to
anxiety.
We pray for the peace that
heals,
the peace that comforts,
the peace that brings
fulfilment to deep longings,
and enhancement to life’s
delights.
We ask this peace
for ourselves and all for
whom we have special concern:
(Here the intercession book
may be read, or people with known needs may be named)
God, give us peace.
If you were to withdraw
your love,
there would be no peace for
us:
but with you
there is healing;
your rushing mighty Spirit
sends peace flowing through
our veins,
to make us dream
and to make dreams come
true:
filling bodies with
strength,
spirits with hope,
and our whole being
with the certainty of
eternal joy.
Let it be so, Lord,
for us,
all those for whom we pray,
and for every living
creature:
until none shall hurt and
none destroy,
and the earth is filled
with intimate knowledge of
you,
as we have received you,
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Intercession 2
with sung response
(Tune: RS 402, Ubi caritas… Taisé)
Great God, you wrap us
round with love,
like a mighty, gentle
mother,
and you carry us like a
strong and tender father,
setting us on our feet
to be your free, mature and
joyful daughters and sons.
Now, in our weakness, we
pray to you
because we cannot come
through life’s troubles unscathed;
and, with souls and bodies
stressed and strained,
we cannot meet each other’s
needs without your Holy Spirit.
Holy Spirit,
come with healing power;
Spirit, gift
of Christ, fill us with us God’s love.
Great God, we come to you
with the resurrected Christ,
who bore the weight of
human flesh and blood to Calvary, for your love’s sake;
and even now, as conqueror
of death,
he pleads with you for all
your suffering children.
Holy Spirit,
come with healing power;
Spirit, gift
of Christ, fill us with us God’s love.
We join our prayers to the
prayers of Christ
for those we know who are
ill or troubled,
and for all your suffering
children who are beyond our reach of mind:
we know that all are
brought home to your heart
in the prayers of Christ
and in the silent
intercessions of your Spirit,
who comes from your deep
heart to ours,
and returns again to you
with all our deepest longings.
Holy Spirit,
come with healing power;
Spirit, gift
of Christ, fill us with us God’s love.
Heal us and help us,
comfort and strengthen us, deepen our joy.
Let our love reflect your
might tenderness and serve you healing gentleness.
Holy Spirit,
come with healing power;
Spirit, gift
of Christ, fill us with us God’s love.
Eternal God, there is great
longing in the world;
people are desperate
because of the suffering they endure.
Earth cries out for peace;
oppressed people cry for justice;
women, men and children
weep in sorrow and pain.
How can we have any hope
for the world,
unless you are with us?
Through all the mystery of
pain, sorrow and human vulnerability,
we dare to believe that you
are on our side,
that your love for us is
greater than ours for you or for each other.
Call us, then, to prophesy!
By the lives we live, by
our patience, by our compassion,
by our belief in the future
you will make for us,
let your Church proclaim
the great things you are doing,
with hope for the nations
of the world,
for every person born, and
every living creature.
Holy Spirit,
come with healing power;
Spirit, gift
of Christ, fill us with us God’s love.
So, Living God, let praise
begin, here and now with us,
welling up from our hearts,
rising towards the skies,
until praise fills the
universe and joy is unconfined:
as you delight in us and we
delight in you, for evermore.
Intercession 3
Eternal God,
as we pray for the peace of
this tormented world,
give us your Spirit,
with power beyond our
imagining
and with peace beyond our
understanding.
Shatter our own pretended
peace
by the power of judgement,
so that we may truly feel
the grief and shame,
the desperation and
longing,
of our world wide
neighbours
who have no peace.
But at the same time
help us to trust your Holy
Spirit’s power
soaring above us, filling
all creation;
and descending on us;
coming to all those places
where people cry out in
fear,
where human souls are
perishing,
looking death and oblivion
in the face.
Help us to believe,
even in our unbelief,
that Christ has heard their
cries,
and rising from the death
that he has shared with them,
he comes again
to bring them into life and
glory.
Give us faith
to trust your power and
peace:
not only for ourselves
but for all your earthly
children,
for whom Christ and your
Spirit
ever intercede.
(In this faith,
we present our
intercessions book
in which are
written…)
And now, for ourselves,
for every person born,
we ask your peace:
deep peace that passes
understanding,
that rides all storms,
and which will keep us in
eternal life:
with Jesus Christ our Lord.
Praise
Loving God,
we resist,
we twist and turn and
writhe
under the burden which you
lay on us;
but your rushing spirit,
whistles by us like the
wind:
sometimes a great gale,
from which we want to
shelter;
sometimes a gentle breeze,
barely felt,
hardly heard,
and yet influencing
everything.
And we are here, today,
where you are worshipped
because by the persistence
of your Spirit,
the Church goes on being,
and we go on being called
to seek until we find,
the love which has already
found and claimed us.
We praise you,
that you never leave us
without the Comforter,
the Strengthener,
the Challenger,
and that you have also
given us each other,
to comfort, strengthen and
challenge.
We are never alone.
The Encounters of Christian
love
may lead us on uncertain
and unknown ways,
but we are surrounded
by the prayers of Christ,
and all our fellow
Christians;
and the Holy Spirit pleads
from our deepest being,
with love to your love:
the love which makes us
strangely strange,
with a strangeness that
will not be strange at all,
when earth sees you as you
really are,
and knows for sure that it
is your love
that gives meaning to
everything!
Then your Rushing Spirit
will inspire eternal
praise:
the ultimate fulfilment
of the praise we offer now,
to you, Living God,
our joy, our life, our
crown:
through Jesus Christ our
Lord.
Commitment
Gift Giving Holy Spirit,
work your power in us,
and make yourself known
among us
by the gifts we share.
Above all, give us the gift
of love:
the love of Eternal God,
which we see in Jesus,
led by you,
going to be crucified;
and which we see again,
triumphant,
in Jesus, brought by you
into resurrection glory.
Make us your peace makers,
true daughters and sons of
God,
breaking down division,
pointing always, by the way
we live,
to the ultimate
reconciliation of the whole creation.
Now send us out
to speak in ways that
people understand,
to serve in ways that heal
broken hearts and hurt minds,
so that by our lives
and who we are becoming
with you,
at last the world may see
and praise
the great things God has
done:
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Dismissal 1
Peace, power, glory
in the Rushing Spirit,
from God’s eternal Trinity
of love,
are with you/us now:
with you/us,
wherever you/us go:
with you/us,
here, everywhere,
now and for evermore.
Dismissal 2
Peace, power, glory,
in the Holy Spirit,
from God’s eternal Trinity
of Love,
are with you/us now,
with you/us wherever you/we
go,
in whatever situation
you/we may find yourself/ourselves:
with you/us
here and everywhere;
now and for evermore.
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