Prayer for the World

Praying for the world is like slipping into its bloodstream and knowing that the blood is Christ’s.  It’s letting go and believing that these moments of presence to its hurts and disabilities, to its beauty and accomplishments, are healing moments.  They give life because he does, and his prayer is what I’m bringing into bruised and infected places.

Prayer for the world means not letting your vision be cramped by what you determine is there to be seen.  Prayer for the world means hope.

We have to let go of our refusal to believe in what we cannot see.  Prayer is an act of confidence, a cutting free from our anger at a world which does not re-style itself to our satisfaction.

This great thing I can do, this is my privilege and my joy.  I lean into the prayer of Christ, into his offering.  I run into it after the fashion of young children into the sea.  It carries me.  It carries the world.

Sr. Miriam Pollard, adapted from The Listening God
By Give Us This Day, Liturgical Press