Document
Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession
L: O Living God,
we pray for your holy people and for the Church.
We ask that every member may be freed to serve you in truth and grace.
We remember our foremothers.
We remember all women who have recognized that to be a person of faith
is to respond in action.
We give thanks for
Hagar, cast out in the wilderness,
Miriam, poetess of the Exodus, leader through the wilderness,
Deborah, a mother and a judge in Israel,
the women who bathed Jesus’ feet with her tears,
the Samaritan woman at the well, who was one of the first to spread
the good news,
Mary Magdalene, first apostle of the resurrection …
All: We give you thanks, O God.
L: Let us remember all those women
who have faced the unknown in faith and met fear with courage.
We give thanks:
for all those women who have dared to step forward and lead,
for all those women who have challenged the stereotypes of society
and risked standing alone,
for … (life up names of women in your own countries and communities).
All: We give you thanks, O God.
L: Let us remember women who have struggled to reform our history,
who have sought in their time to minister to the needs of those who are hurt,
disadvantaged and alienated in our land.
We give thanks:
for … (life up names of women in your countries and communities)
for those women whose faces and names are unknown, yet whose work
helps to fulfil your vision of shalom on earth.
All: We give you thanks, O God.
L: Let us remember those women, known and unknown,
who have laboured in the struggle before us:
We give thanks:
for … (life up names of women in your countries and around the world)
All: We give you thanks, O God.
O holy and sustaining God,
make us worthy to inherit their valour and vision.
Challenge us again lest we wither and perish,
by holding to the familiar when it has lost its savour.
As your daughters and sons,
may we be brought nearer to a new vision of your love,
through the grace of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
(from “Celebrating the Decade” © 1997 WCC)
God of the poor,
come to us as a devout woman offering two mites.
God of the lost,
come to us as a prudent woman seeking a hidden coin.
God of the outsider,
come to us as an alien woman begging for crumbs off our table.
God of the sick,
come to us as a bleeding woman grasping for a healing tough.
God of the condemned,
come to us as a judged woman fallen before her accusers.
God of the hurt,
come to us as a beautiful woman washing our feet with her hair.
God of the dying,
come to us as a mourning woman grieving for her brother.
Compassionate God,
open our hearts to receive you
so that we may mark this day as a time
when we recommit ourselves and our churches to be in solidarity with women.
You have visited us through the women
who have been filled with your Spirit.
You have blessed us all with dreams for a common future
and gifts for a common life,
in all things keep us faithful to the message of your gospel,
that as women and men we may together bear witness to your love
in Christ Jesus.
Amen.
(from “I will pour out my Spirit” © 1992 WCC)
