• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
PEACE BE WITH YOU…
CONTENTS
Franciscan PrayerInside Cover ContentsiPrefaceiiI. Peace Prayers1II. Peace Talks6III. Peace Saints11IV. Peace Poems19V. Peace Potpourri28Franciscan Travel Blessing39
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church Yardley, PA
i
 
PREFACE
Praying for a Peaceful Planet
This publication was conceived in the midst of a prayer project based on PeacePlanet: Light for Our World by Nan Merrill. Nan's stunning booklet holds up adifferent country on each page, accompanied by a beautiful picture, a simple text,and a petition for one life-giving desire. Take Bangladesh, for example. Thepicture is of a white swamp lily flourishing in a sea of mud. The text reads: Prayer,deeply rooted in silence,with hearts open wide,brings Light out of darknessneeded somewhere on Earth.We are asking,MayLightflourish on EarthThe booklet invites each of us to envision peace in our mind, choose peace withall our heart, and be peace in our own life. And it proceeds on the good newsreflected in these words from Nan's preface:
The world sorely needs our peace-focused prayers blanketing thenations on behalf of all living beings everywhere. The good newsis that the cumulative effectiveness of prayer multiplies. If two people pray with focus and feeling, the effect is of four people. Asingle candle in the darkness dispels the night.
Our project accepted this invitation to go forth in peace and multiply our candlelight. We traveled through the world one page at a time, each of uspraying for the same country each day and all of us guided by the prayer attributed to St. Francis, "Lord, make us instruments of your peace...."Eleven of us from St. Andrew's began on Labor Day 2006 praying for Afghanistanand asking that Peace would flourish on Earth. We ended on St.Patrick's Day 2007, praying for Zimbabwe and a Commitment to Peace onEarth. By then, our group had grown to 47 members dispersed over threecontinents and throughout the United States. As the project proceeded,members requested that from time to time they be reminded of what countries wewere praying for on what dates. I began sending out weekly "Where-in-the-World-Are-We" emails. It then became natural to share our prayer concerns for family and friends in that week's countries and that in turn led to a sharing of ii
 
reflections, quotes, poems and other readings related to peace. Our “PeaceBooklet” collects the body of writings that circulated and accumulated.The prophet Micah asks us to consider what the Lord requires of us. Theanswer: do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God. The MicahGroup is charged with centering and inspiring the outreach efforts of St.Andrew's and we have chosen the requirements set forth by Micah as our guide.This project speaks to all three so we decided to "publish" this booklet.Walking humbly with our God entails realizing that all humans were created equaland in God's image and prayer for the people of all countries and different faithsfollows in that light. Loving kindness entails a desire to be kind andcompassionate to all people, and to receive kindness and compassion back(Lord knows, we need it). Doing justice, of course, is the rub. But if we walkhumbly with God and love kindness, it follows that we will also want peace andprosperity for all, and we'll begin figuring out how to share both and to create amore perfect, just union among all peoples.May we be an answer to God's prayers for our world, an instrument of peace,and a collective and intensifying candlelight that dispels the night.Bob Andersoniii
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...