Prayers of intercession
This week is sometimes seen as a time for refreshment in the middle of Lent’s austerities and before the story really darkens. Many will mark this Sunday as Mothering Sunday – a day for thankfulness, but also a difficult day for some.
In the shadow of your wings, we sing for joy.
O Lord, restore us and make us new.
God of love,
for the softening of our hearts and the opening of our arms;
for generosity that welcomes the lost;
for our need of your tenderness to restore our failures;
for our churches to be renewed in loving and giving;
for the courage to lay down our lives for one another;
for the strength to answer your call to serve others;
for a new start:
we cry to you.
Bring healing and hope.
God of love,
for all who carry the scars of conflict,
the external and internal signs of pain endured;
for the lost and lonely;
the displaced and the dispossessed;
for all whose lives have been broken;
for those in our own community who are suffering…
for all who wait powerless at the bedside of the ill and the dying:
we cry to you.
Bring healing and hope.
God of love,
for the needs in our own communities;
for families under pressure;
for people struggling with rising bills;
for people in debt and distress who have nowhere to turn;
for all who need to know today they are loved;
for all who are bringing up children amid the pressures of today’s world;
for the sacrifices that form the fabric of parenthood;
and for children and young people facing a future full of challenges:
we cry to you.
Bring healing and hope.
God of love,
for mothers who are apart from their children;
for all motherless and lost children;
for all of us whose mothers have died;
for a parent or parents of a child who has died and for children without parents;
for all who long for children but are unable to have them;
for all the struggles of family life;
for children far away from home;
for unaccompanied children fleeing fighting;
and for children whose homes are not places of safety and kindness:
we cry to you.
Bring healing and hope.
God of love
for the places in Ukraine that are now our litany of despair:
for Mariupol, reduced to the ashes of a dead land,
for Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Kherson,
for Odesa, Melitopol and Kyiv;
for towns razed to the ground;
for communities wiped entirely from the map;
for the besieged, the abducted and the starving;
for motherless children in a war zone;
for the injured and the dying
and for those who weep by their side:
we cry to you.
Bring healing and hope.
God of love,
for the places in the world that are torn apart by conflict;
for Myanmar, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen;
for the hungry and the homeless;
for the persecuted and the oppressed;
for all who need safety and shelter;
for those whose rights are denied;
for the places where truth cannot be spoken
and where dissenting voices are silenced:
we cry to you.
Bring healing and hope.
God of love,
for simple pleasures in the midst of challenge and hardship;
for lengthening hours of daylight;
for people who lift our burdens,
wipe away our tears,
share our lives and our dreams
and call out our best selves;
for your faithful presence with us
through darkness and light,
and for a deeper experience of your love
which shapes us, calls us, rescues us
and will bring us home:
we cry to you.
Bring healing and hope.
In the shadow of your wings, we sing for joy.
O Lord, restore us and make us new. Amen.