Sung Response:
Send your Holy Spirit
on your gathered people,
merciful and loving
God, hear us, as we pray.
Reading:
For I am creating new heavens and
a new earth;
the former troubles shall not be
remembered or come to mind.
Be glad and rejoice forever in
what I am creating;
for I am creating a city of peace
and joy,
and creating its people as a
delight.
Prayer:
O God of
love, we are in need of your creative power within and among us.
Our urge
to destroy has always been larger, stronger, and easier to listen to,
than your
call to peace and harmony.
Help us
to see your city of peace and joy, not as a future promise,
but as a
present reality. Help us to live in your
new earth even as we struggle with the challenges and troubles of our lives.
Sung Response:
Send your Holy Spirit
on your gathered people,
merciful and loving
God, hear us, as we pray.
Reading:
I will rejoice in the holy city,
and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping
be heard in it,
or the cry of distress.
No longer will there be in it an
infant that lives but a few days,
or an elder who does not live out
a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred
years will be considered a youth,
and one who falls short of a
hundred will be considered unfortunate.
Prayer:
O God of
love, we are in need of your compassion within and among us.
Sometimes
the pain of living seems a burden too heavy to bear,
and we
lose our ability to rejoice and take delight.
We long for
a time when tears will not be necessary,
but in
the meantime, help us to see through your eyes
and
delight in the wonders of creation,
and rejoice
in the miracles of birth and growth,
and thus
dispel the shadows of death and suffering.
Sung Response:
Send your Holy Spirit
on your gathered people,
merciful and loving
God, hear us, as we pray.
Reading:
They shall live in the houses they
build;
they shall eat the fruit of the
vineyards they plant.
They shall not build homes for others
and yet be homeless;
they shall not plant for others and
yet remain hungry;
for the days of my people will be
like the days of a tree,
and my beloved people shall long
enjoy the work of their hands.
Prayer:
O God of
love, we are in need of your divine justice within and among us.
We know
that some have gathered to themselves so much wealth
as to
make it meaningless to measure it,
while
others toil for no reward and struggle to acquire the basics of life.
Too often
we have benefited where we have not laboured,
and too
often we have seen others abused and not spoken out.
Too often
we have taken the resources of your created world
without
regard for balance, harmony, or sustainable relationships.
Help us
to seek more and more each day
a way of
being in which those who have much do not have too much,
and those
who have little do not have too little,
and all
our relations are given space
to thrive
and grow as you would have them do.
Sung Response:
Send your Holy Spirit
on your gathered people,
merciful and loving
God, hear us, as we pray.
Reading:
They shall not labor in vain,
or bear children doomed to suffer;
for they and their descendants shall
be people blessed by God.
Even before they call on me, I
will answer,
while they are still speaking I
will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall eat
side by side,
the lion shall eat straw like the
ox.
Serpents will be content to live
on the ground,
and shall not do any harm on all
my holy mountain, says the Lord.
Prayer:
O God of
love, we are in need of your presence within and among us.
In Christ
you are at work reconciling all things to yourself.
We long
to see the day that we and all of creation are reconciled,
each to
the other,
so that
none will know fear, hunger, or despair,
and then
none will suffer injustice, abuse, or neglect,
and then
all will be able to open their hearts,
and then
all will be transformed in the divine image,
and then
the peaceable kingdom will be realized.
In the
meantime, help us to love as we have been loved,
to give
as we have received,
and to
live as though we have been born to eternal life.
Sung Response:
Send your Holy Spirit
on your gathered people,
merciful and loving
God, hear us, as we pray.
