Novena for Peace 2012 Prayer Ritual

Invitation to pray a Novena for Peace 2012

For the next nine days (or any nine days of your choice in this season of holiness and hopefulness), please join me in setting aside ten minutes of our day to sit quietly reflecting on how we have added to—or disrupted—peace during the previous 24 hours. In our reflections, we may consider that if we can’t make peace in our hearts or with those closest to us, family and friends, we will continue to struggle to make peace in the world.

Our hurts and woundedness convince us of our rightness and righteousness, yet we seldom consider how our actions, beliefs, thoughts, intentions, or motivations are experienced by others.

We may in fact be right but do we act with love? Can we forgive? Can we bless our enemies—or those who simply anger us—and turn away from our need for justification, revenge, war? These are the first steps toward making peace in the world and if enough of us focus our belief that true peace is possible, we can make it real.

I invite you now to encounter God and give yourself the gift of peace so that you may go into the world and share it with others.

Getting Ready to Pray

Take a moment to settle yourself in God’s embrace by breathing deeply and slowly.

Sit or recline in a comfortable posture.

Close your eyes and intentionally relax your body as you become aware of God’s presence in you; all around you.

Breathe in the spirit of God; breathe out the cares and concerns of the day.

Invite the Spirit to join you as you pray . . .

Opening Prayer: Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is sadness, joy.

Oh Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Questions for meditation and reflection

In what way(s) have I been an instrument of peace today? Where or when did I see God in it?

What robbed me of my peace today? Can I find God there too?

How does God call to me in my frustration, anger, confusion and hurt?

Who needs my forgiveness and blessing today?

Whose forgiveness and blessing do I need?

Am I willing to surrender my ego to allow reconciliation to come to pass?

Closing prayers

Divine Lord you are the Author of all life, love, and peace and for this we give thanks.

We ask to join our hearts and voices with all your children who seek to create peace in our lives, in our families, in our communities and in our world. We desire to be instruments of peace.

We seek the courage to act in a way that reveals our knowledge of the sacredness of all life, to forgive those who hurt us, and return blessings for curses. Help us walk in every moment of each day fully conscious of our responsibility to be the peace we seek.

We pray: Father, may your name be held holy. Your kingdom come, your will be done. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our debts for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test. Amen.