Sunday, May 27, 2012
Offered by Thomas C. Rook, Parish Associate

Creator God, on this Pentecost Sunday we give you thanks for your Spirit, always and everywhere at work. We thank you for the beautiful earth, this our home, in which you provide for the nurture of life. On this green earth and within our own lives, we sense your good intentions. We see your creativity and your love of living things. And in our lives we discern your faithful, creative presence.

So we do thank you, merciful Lord, for providing us with things of beauty that cheer our spirits. At the same time we remember those who this day find their lives difficult—ones around the world and in Chicago who are fearful for themselves and for their children, hungering for fairness and justice. In days of national and international uncertainties, political and economic, we pray for leaders of thisnation and state and city who need your blessings of wisdom and goodwill.

We are grateful this morning for all those in our lives for whom we care and who care for us. They become for us, gracious Lord, living expression of your love and grace and compassion in our lives. Especially on this Memorial Day weekend, we remember with gratitude all those who lived and died in the line of duty, for those who in years past have fallen in battle while fighting for our country’s freedoms, who sacrificed their today for our tomorrow, and for ones in uniform this day who are in places of danger.

We give thanks for ones who give of themselves in the care of others, whether for a parent or brother, sister or friend weakened in health, and we are thankful for those who attend to our children, for parents and teachers and tutors who give quality time to these little ones who represent our nation’s future.

We express our gratitude for those who invest themselves in the work of your kingdom, in the great purposes of Christ’s church, in the work of this Fourth Presbyterian Church, who bring qualities of faithfulness and generosity and goodwill.

We thank you for those in our city and nation who advocate for ones whose voices don’t count for much—the frail, the homeless, the stranger—and we thank you, O Lord, that none of these are lost to your love and mercy, that you claim the weak and the wanderer and the outsider as especially worthy of yourcare and of ours.

Finally, we thank you for yourself, O God, for seeking to find us when we lose our way, to draw us to your side when we have strayed, to claim us as your own when we have lost sight of to whom we belong. Mindful of all that you are and all that you have generously given to us, we now join in using words taught to us by our Lord Jesus Christ, praying in one voice, Our Father . . .

Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church