Positive Rites - Prayers and Litanies

PRAYERS OF INTERCESSION

We pray for everyone whose lives have been touched by HIV: Those living with the illness, loved ones, friends, family. And we remember those we have lost to HIV and AIDS. Help us to see that in remembrance and togetherness, we grow in strength, in hope and compassion.

We pray for those who care for people with HIV,
and for all who are seeking treatment and a cure.
Grant them patience to endure and wisdom to seek a better future Blessed with hope and life.

Fill us with your Hope.
Grant us your healing and redemptive love. Amen.

COME TO US, O GOD

Come to us, God of peace
Come with your healing, reconciling power,
that fear may be cast out by love,
prejudice be replaced by trust,
hostility give way to gentleness. Come to us, God of peace.

Come to us, God of justice
that we may hear the prayers of those living with HIV in every land,
calling us, like Jesus the healer,

to walk with them in the search for justice and mercy. Come to us, God of justice.

Come to us, God love.

Come that we may see you in the poor, the lonely, the stranger, the marginalised,
and those whose lives have been touched by HIV in so many different ways.
Come that we might respond to them as your compassionate community of faith.

Come that we may see you in people of every race, in humanity in all of its diversity
and commit ourselves to the hope that we celebrate our life together in true community and justice. Come to us. God of love.

(Adapted from Dorothy McMahon's prayer in Out of the Darkness, Australian Council of Churches.)

ONE WORLD, ONE HOPE: AN ADVENT PRAYER

God of hope

Look with compassion and tenderness upon

everyone living with HIV.

At this time of Advent Hope,

As we prepare for the coming of your Son into the world

We give thanks for all signs of hope ....

For growing understanding and compassion

For medical advances and better treatments For changing attitudes and positive lives

We thank you for the personal journeys

On which You accompany us.
May we communicate your hope to one another

As we travel on together.

God of unity
Bind us together with strong ties of love
That this faith community
May be a place where
We can all find acceptance and welcome

May it be a place of comfort for the stranger
May it be a place where care is given and received, Where stories are told and heard,
Where fear is overcome by love,
Where you are to be found.
Amen.
(Adapted from: Clare le Vay)

PRAYER FOR PEACE AND HEALING

Merciful God, we are here to give ourselves to you and to your people. It is through what we are and do that others will l come to know you. We are here to bring peace to a broken world, and healing to those in need. We are here to witness to the world, that we live in response to a desperate society, seeking truth, equality and freedom.

Parent of the poor and oppressed, the marginalised and the stranger, we ask for your help. You have shown us how to be faithful in the midst of persecution. You have taught us how to stand firm in the pain that we experience in our broken world.

Teach us to seek you in justice, to walk with you in peace, to build a world of welcome for all women and men in their diversity; and to tread lightly on this precious Earth which is your gift to all living things.

We pray all this in your name. Amen

BLESSED ARE YOU, LORD

Blessed are you, lord of All, giving new life and health to those who call upon you. Usher in your kingdom and manifest your power to bring comfort, hope and wholeness to all those living with HIV.

Blessed are you, Lord of Wisdom, who push back the borders of darkness and disease. Enlighten those who search for a cure for HIV and strengthen those who care for our sisters and brothers living with HIV.

Blessed are you, Lord of Love and Peace. Be with the loved ones, friends and families of those who live with HIV. Touch us all with your compassionate love and make us instruments of your healing and wholeness.

Blessed are you, Lord, God of Mercy. Let us receive with joyful thanks

your grace and your reconciling light and life throughout the ages. Amen.

A PRAYER FOR WOMEN

Loving God, we pray in a special way today with and for all women living with HIV.
We pray that they may be freed of all pain and anxiety: physical, emotional and spiritual.
May we all experience your steadfast, compassionate, merciful love. We give thanks for the witness of so many women, living with HIV, caring for partners, parenting children, sharing their hopes, their fears and their dreams with friends.
We praise you for their strength and vitality and their witness of hope. We rejoice in the gifts of women exercised in ministry amongst all your people.

Let us share the prayer of Julian of Norwich:

‘Jesus Christ is our true Mother. We received our ‘Being’ from Him and this is where His Motherhood begins.

And with it comes the gentle Protection and Guard of Love which will never cease to surround us.

Just as God is our Father, so God is also our Mother.’ In the name of Jesus our friend and redeemer. Amen

LITANY – adapted from Mario Hancock

God of mercy and compassion,
God of just judgment whose justice is perfected in mercy,

God of creation and redemption: our maker and our sustainer, lover of all living things; You who have enabled us to be who we are, as we are; and who have gently called and beckoned us through all our days,

We call up on you now on behalf of our sisters and brothers living with HIV.
We believe, Lord, in ways beyond our ability to fully comprehend, that you intend for your people's wholeness and health, that you would have us to be well of mind and body and spirit.

And yet we confess that we have not always sufficiently treasured the gift of personhood you have given.

We have depreciated your gift of life in ourselves and in others.
We have not seen your face in diversity, in difference, in the stranger, in creation.
And you have called us to love one another.
Love, you said. Love. And that's not easy.

We know that too many times we have overlooked the needs of others: treating others as strangers rather than as persons created in your image.

And all of us are a fearful people, living in the midst of a fearful people.
And yet you are a God who has called us "not to fear".
And so we come now, humbling ourselves to ask your presence with us, with people living with HIV, their loved ones, friends and families. Grant wisdom among those who search for ways controlling or eradicating this disease.

Give to our political and religious leaders a true sense of compassion and justice, that they may encourage us and help us find the ways of being people of love.
Help those living with HIV to know your presence and support.

Free us from stigma and enlighten the world that it might not judge illness a sign of your absence.

Amen.

‘Prayers and Litanies’ Adapted from Positive Rites - Liturgical Resources for World AIDS Day by John Thornhill