A Prayer After the Shooting in Orlando

We are heartbroken after the shooting at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, now the largest mass shooting in United States history. We share this prayer from the Presbyterian Mission Agency and join our voices in prayer, particularly for the LGBTQ community. We also know that prayer comes in the form of action as well as words. We ask that you share how your congregation and community are responding here in the comments or on the NEXT Church Facebook page so that we can learn from one another and be supported by one another.

by the Rev. Laurie Ann Kraus | Associate Mission Director, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, Presbyterian Mission Agency

orlandoOnce again, Holy One, we cry, how long, O Lord?  

We wonder, when will it be enough? 

We pray you will forgive our society which tolerates violence,

Our fearful xenophobia, and our willingness to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to words and deeds of intolerance aimed at those “others” we fear are not like us.

The same lifeblood—the gift of a loving God—flows through all our veins, and spills out without regard to difference, staining the floors our places of fellowship, community, and learning.

staining our lives with sorrow, fear and regret.

Let the same heart beat as one among us, that we will draw together across these false divides,

And rise up as one to breathe peace where there is no peace,

and heal our communities and our world.

 

God of life, whose presence sustains us in every circumstance,

As the sound of gunfire echoes across Orlando

we seek the grounding power of your love and compassion.

We open our hearts in anger, sorrow and hope:

For those who have been lost: brothers and sisters, neighbors and friends

Your children, enjoying an evening of music and friendship,

Whose lives were ended or maimed in a hail of hatred and gunfire

We pray for those who have been spared and those whose lives are changed forever

that they may find solace, sustenance, and strength in the hard days to come.

 

We give thanks for first responders:

who ran toward gunfire, rather than away

who dropped everything to save the wounded and comfort survivors

We pray for doctors and nurses and mental health providers

who repair what has been broken

who bring healing and hope in the face of the unchecked principalities and powers of violence.

 

God of the rainbow, once long ago, you stretched your light across the heavens to renew your covenant of peace with your people, you promised not to destroy.

Help us in these days to believe that promise, and to participate in it, and to treasure the life which it treasures.

In the wake of an event that should be impossible to contemplate

but which has become all too common in our experience,

open our eyes, break our hearts,

and turn our hands to the movements of your Spirit,

that our anger and sorrow may unite in service to build a reign of peace,

where the lion and the lamb may dwell together,

and terror no longer hold sway over our common life.

In the name of Christ, our healer and our Light, we pray, Amen.

1 reply
  1. Gary D. Swaim
    Gary D. Swaim says:

    Orlando Memoriam

    It’s only a body. . .or two. . .or fifty
    or more.

    Lots of oxygen, good percentage of carbon,
    chlorine (see? just a tube of toothpaste).
    Lipids? What are they? Just a collection of things.

    We’re so much more than all that. So why, oh
    why, why, why so much talk about Orlando
    or anywhere else when a human falls to the ground?

    Because a smile has fallen, laughter, the capacity
    for friendship, passion for the simplicity of breath
    in a world needing more deep breathing now than
    perhaps ever before.

    Take slow, deep breaths. God gave them to you as a gift.
    And, between each one, give that one, that two, that fifty
    or more smiles. . .laughter, wherever they are.

    Gary D. Swaim, “Ruling” Elder

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