Prayerful Concerns of Our Parish Community – 5th Sunday of Easter
We post these Prayers of the Faithful from the weekend of the 5th Sunday of Easter (May 6-7, 2023) with the sincere hope that they are helpful to you in your reflections and prayer this week.
Loving God, as it was for the earliest disciples of the Risen Christ, our world is a place of many needs, and of people needing attention and help. We ask your grace as we try to understand and respond.
Help us to feel for the people the world (and sometimes we) avoid, those we call strange, those suffering bereavement, those never or seldom employed, those who fear there is no meaning to their lives…we pray to the Lord.
The experts say a quarter of our young people in school have used drugs this past year. Help us to help them, welcome them, assist them in finding a better way. Help us to see and care for the young who have no parents able to provide safety, food, or love. We pray to the Lord.
Help us to feel for those who have been abused in life – physically or emotionally. May responsible persons and institutions acknowledge that pain and provide real assistance to them. Help us not to demonize the abusers, either. Despite what they have done, they, too, are children of our One God. We pray to the Lord.
Help us to feel for those who are so deeply conscious of their failures and sin that they struggle to believe in forgiveness. Help us all when a remembrance of a long-past failure undermines our belief in forgiveness. We pray to the Lord.
Help us to feel for those living in Ukraine, Sudan and other places of great danger and suffering. Show us ways to express our sorrow that can help bring an end to these evils. We pray to the Lord.
Help us to trust in the promise of eternal life for our loved ones, of healing from all that harms them, and, one day, us. At this liturgy we especially entrust to you:
4:30 PM Joanne S. McHugh by Jeannine Poulin
7:30 AM Joseph Louis Aceto by Cathleen, Bob & Brian Reardon
9:30 AM The People of the Parish both Living & Deceased
5:00 PM Barbara Nelson Friedlander by Stephanie Lorigan
We pray to the Lord.
God of all love, we entrust these prayers and needs to you. “To the lost Christ shows his face; to the unloved he gives his embrace; to those who cry in pain or disgrace, Christ makes, with his friends, a touching place.” Help us to be friends of Christ and a touching place for those hurting in our world. Amen
(Prayers inspired by the song “A Touching Place” John L Bell).