Jesus, you shared peace around a table of anxiety, peace in the face of the uncertain, peace in the place of pain. May we share tables of peace in places of pain, sharing food and friendship and words and life. Because you came to a fearful world and found your place around those tables.
– Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community, Padraig O Tuama
We mourn with those who have suffered great and disastrous loss. All our hearts have been seared by the sudden and sense-less taking of innocent lives. We pray for healing and for the strength to serve and encourage one another in hope and faith.
– President George W. Bush, National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for the Victims Of the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001, White House Proclamation Archives
Today we stand together to express our unity and our commitment. We stand as one people against the violence that has touched every corner of every part of our country. And we commit ourselves to journey on the path toward a more perfect peace—peace in our hearts, in all of our homes, our towns and our cities—to a place where the sound of gunfire is stilled and the laughter of children fills the air.
– A Moral Call: People of Faith Confronting the Tragedy of Gun Violence, First Unitarian Universalist Society
We raise our prayers in remembrance of the victims of violence, both those who have been injured and those who have been killed in cities and towns across our country. We hold their memories dear. We treasure those lives permanently altered through injury or those taken in senseless acts of violence and we pray that they might find rest and peace. May their lives continue to make a difference in our world.
– Adapted from Moral Call: A Vermont Interfaith Prayer and Remembrance and Bishops Against Gun Violence
God of wind and water, stillness and storm, your Spirit sweeps over the surface of the sea. Give us faith to seek you in times of trouble. Reach out your hand to us when we are sinking so that we may believe and worship you; through Jesus Christ, Sovereign and Savior.
– Unknown Author, based on Matthew 14:22-33, pcusa.org
