20.04.2020
Litany of Peace
By Greg Fromholz
Humanity, I’m speaking to you and to me, are we listening? This is our time to shine. This is where we need to continue, enabled by peace, to give beyond ourselves. For kindness cannot be isolated, hope has no barriers and love goes beyond socially distancing. It is found at the end of a phone call, through the screen of FaceTime, by food collected and dropped off.
This is the time where we need to continue to go beyond our fears and give our very best selves, selflessly:
Creators need to continue to create
Leaders need to continue to lead
Singers need to continue to sing
Comedians need to continue to make us laugh
Our communities need to continue to welcome one another from across our gardens and streets; a smile, a wave, a kind word, a bag of groceries for our elderly and our confined.
And together we can not only pray for peace, but through our action we can be peace:
Peace for the isolated and the aging
Peace for our Gardaí, doctors, nurses and ambulance drivers
Peace for our boomers, zoomers, Gen Xers, millennials and centennials
Peace for our grandmas and grandpas, for our brothers and sisters, for our mums and dads, peace for our children
Lord in your risen glory
Hear our prayer
Peace for our co–workers, co–creators, co–isolators and You–tubers
Peace for our carers, makers, bakers, and our home–sewers making masks and gowns
Together we can not only pray for peace, but action and be peace:
Peace for our funeral Directors, supermarket clerks, clergy and un–employed
Lord in your risen glory
Hear our prayer
Peace for our entrepreneurs, government officials, refugees and artists
Peace for our baptisms, peace for our weddings, peace for our funerals
Peace for our prisoners and ex–offenders, our counsellors and bin persons
Peace for our podcasters, roasters, vaccine researchers and the desperately sick
Lord in your risen glory
Hear our prayer
Peace for our farmers and pharmacists, teachers and students and scientists
Peace– dear God a tangible peace – for our most vulnerable and fragile; the homeless, the abused, the addicted, the alone and the lonely
And peace for all those who can list their names here…
May peace be with you today and may peace wake you tomorrow.
And may we all action prayer in saying: A piece of my life I give to you, that you may know true peace.
Lord in your risen glory
Hear our prayer
Greg Fromholz is Dublin & Glendalough’s Young Adults’ Officer. Litany of Peace emerged from the sermon he preached from Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, yesterday (Sunday April 19).