Prayer

Merciful Love,

On this special occasion we commemorate the image of your most sacred heart. Sensitize us even more to your boundless love for humanity. Give us a share in the ocean of love you are pouring upon us, that we might receive and extend every gift you provide for a world in need. Inspire us to serve you more faithfully by serving all people with joy and compassion, especially those who are poor, dying, and underserved. As your hands and feet in the world, we pray, Amen.

Prayer

God of my neighbor,

We confess there are times when we do not try to understand each other. Perhaps because we do not really know how. When so many issues seem so obvious to us, gun control, vaccines, social spending, and so on, as conversations like these grip us in conscience, lead us not into temptation. Lead us not into the temptation to become selfish in spirit, no longer understanding that we are one with “those people” we otherwise deem so alien. Deliver us from the evil of dehumanizing neighbors as we push forward agendas for fixing the world. Rather, keep us mindful of the love that you show to us. Let us dwell in your love so as to seek understanding, and find our way forward into the new life you have promised. Together. Amen.

Prayer

God of our progress,

Help us to be patient with ourselves, as we learn to find balance in the goals that we set for our lives. The same goes as well for the directions we take in this ministry, which we share with you and each other. Give us patience as we pursue our mission together, committing ourselves to good service that responds to felt needs, while committing our sense of “success” to your hands. And as the years roll on, may we continue to look back and give thanks at all the ways you have blessed us, abundantly more than we could have ever imagined. Amen.

Prayer

Love eternal,

We have all lived enough to have regrets from the past, as we think of the love that we failed to extend when we had the chance. Humbly we ask for you to somehow make up for our missed opportunities. And gladly we thank you for trusting us still, today and each day, with new opportunities to put love into action with all those you place in our way. Like St. Aloysius Gonzaga, make us more holy by perfecting our freedom to love. For the sake of all those we encounter today, just as they are and just as they need, free us to be agents of world-changing love. Amen.

Prayer

Life eternal,

We remember today your many faithful witnesses, who shared your good news and embodied your love in the face of misunderstanding, hostility, and even the threat of death. We especially remember today the Irish Martyrs of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who were willing to share in the ultimacy of your sacrifice, upon their own soil within their own homeland. In memory of them and others like them today, we pray for the day when our world is transformed and death will be no more, when no one will pay for their faith, hope, and love with their lives. Until that day comes, may we all consider more thoughtfully that the way we face death is another way we face life. Amen.

Prayer

Father God,

Today is a happy intersection of holidays, as we celebrate Juneteenth and Father’s Day, too. On the one hand, we acknowledge and remember that emancipation, freedom, and equality are not merely matters of decree, but the result of decisive, real-world progress in the lived experience of community. May it be so, today! On the other hand, we consider the gifts of our fathers and grandfathers and our ancestors before them, all those who embody the spirit of fatherhood, giving us courage to go forth and attain dreams and hopes beyond even their expectations. May it also be so! And so we rise, with gratitude and with joyful determination: to honor our fathers by shaping a better, more equitable world for all. Amen.

Prayer

God of communion,

Help us speak boldly about what we believe to be true, right, and good. Just as urgently, though, lead us to listen, with sincere consideration and without any prejudice. Turn our eyes and our ears to those we are prone to overlook and ignore because we assume there is no common ground. Induce in us the virtue of humility that we might model a community built on genuine dialogue. May we find our way through this thicket of brokenness and into your pasture of peace together. Together, we pray, Amen.