Prayers for peace
Pray for the gift of peace for all those facing conflict.
Mariam sits by the stove in her home in a refugee camp in Lebanon.
Peace be to your homes! May peace reign in your walls, in your palaces, peace!
Home is the place to which we retreat at the end of the day, the place where we can put our feet up, eat something comforting, be surrounded by our loved ones and rest, ready to face a new day tomorrow.
At least, this may be our ideal scenario, yet sadly for so many, it is a dream rather than a reality.
Mariam, an elderly Palestinian woman, lived in Syria with her husband for 50 years. But when the war in Syria started, they fled to Lebanon, where they have been in a refugee camp for the last 11 years. When war broke out in Lebanon too, they couldn’t afford to leave again.
“During the war, they’d tell me to leave and go to the city, but we don’t have any money… Everyone fled to the city. They all did, but I stayed here with my son. I’d be lying if I said we were not afraid. My heart would pound, yet we would stay put. With every strike we stay put.”
Mariam continues:
“I sit there all day by the door. I can’t go further out, no one can. Shrapnel falls on the camp.”
Let us pray today for peace in every home, and work for peace however we can among our own family and friends, in our local community and throughout the world.
Advent prayer
Merciful God,
grant us peace in our lives,
in our homes and in our community
and lead us all to work together
for a better world,
free from conflict and violence.
Amen.
Act
Join us in prayer today for peace in our troubled world.