God of fear, God of the night, God of the expectation, you visited shepherds in the night with songs and sights of joy. In all of our nights, turn us towards hope, because hope might just keep us alive.
– Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community, Padraig O Tuama
Welcome into your arms the victims of violence and terrorism. Comfort their families and all who grieve for them, and help us in our fear and uncertainty. Bless us with the knowledge that we are secure in your love. Strengthen all those who work for peace, and may the peace the world cannot give reign in our hearts.
– Unkown Author, xavier.edu
Jesus, you shared peace around a table of anxiety, peace in the face of the uncertain, peace in the place of pain. May we share tables of peace in places of pain, sharing food and friendship and words and life. Because you came to a fearful world and found your place around those tables.
– Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community, Padraig O Tuama
We mourn with those who have suffered great and disastrous loss. All our hearts have been seared by the sudden and sense-less taking of innocent lives. We pray for healing and for the strength to serve and encourage one another in hope and faith.
– President George W. Bush, National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for the Victims Of the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001, White House Proclamation Archives
Today we stand together to express our unity and our commitment. We stand as one people against the violence that has touched every corner of every part of our country. And we commit ourselves to journey on the path toward a more perfect peace—peace in our hearts, in all of our homes, our towns and our cities—to a place where the sound of gunfire is stilled and the laughter of children fills the air.
– A Moral Call: People of Faith Confronting the Tragedy of Gun Violence, First Unitarian Universalist Society
We raise our prayers in remembrance of the victims of violence, both those who have been injured and those who have been killed in cities and towns across our country. We hold their memories dear. We treasure those lives permanently altered through injury or those taken in senseless acts of violence and we pray that they might find rest and peace. May their lives continue to make a difference in our world.
– Adapted from Moral Call: A Vermont Interfaith Prayer and Remembrance and Bishops Against Gun Violence
