Intercessory Prayers at Morning

One: That this day may be holy, good and joyful:
All: we pray to you, O Lord. 

One: That we may offer to you our worship and our work:
All:  we pray to you, O Lord.

One: That we may strive for the well-being of all creation:
All:  we pray to you, O Lord.

One: That in the pleasures and pains of life, we may know the love of Christ and be thankful:
All:  we pray to you, O Lord.

One: That we may be bound together by your Holy Spirit, in communion with [N and with] all your saints, entrusting one another and all our life to Christ:
All:  we pray to you, O Lord.

One: Let us commend ourselves, and all for whom we pray, to the mercy and protection of God.

(petitions offered silently or aloud)


--from the Church of England

Prayer of Intercession

Almighty God,
whose goodness loved us into life,
and whose mercies never fail;

we commend to thee
all who have a place in our hearts and sympathies;
all who are joined to us by the sacred ties
of kindred, friendship, and love;
all little children who are dear to us;
all our neighbors and their households;
all who help us to a faithful life,
and whose spirit turns our duties to love;

keep them both outwardly in their bodies,
and inwardly in their souls,
and pour upon them the continual dew of thy blessing.

--John Hunter, Devotional Services, 1915, cited in Morgan Phelps Noyes, Prayers for Services

For the Indifferent

Crucifixion facade at the Basilica of La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona.

We pray thee for those who
amid all the knowledge of our day
are still without knowledge;
for those who hear not the sighs of the children that toil,
nor the sobs of such as are wounded
because others have made haste to be rich;
for those who have never felt
the hot tears of the mothers of the poor
that struggle vainly against poverty and vice.
Arouse them, we beseech thee,
from their selfish comfort,
and grant them the grace of social repentance.
Smite us all with the conviction
that for us ignorance is sin,
and that we are indeed our brothers' keepers
if our own hand has helped to lay him low.
Though increase of knowledge bring increase of sorrow,
may we turn without flinching to the light
and offer ourselves as instruments of thy spirit
in bringing order and beauty
out of disorder and darkness.

--Walter Rauschenbusch, from Prayers of the Social Awakening, 1909