Reflection in Lent: Prayers for Hope and Peace

A spot in the gardens at Canterbury Cathedral - fron a screenshot

 

At the end of today's service of Morning Prayer from Canterbury Cathedral, Dean Robert Willis noted that while the site of the service featured the blue hyacinths and yellow daffodils in tribute and prayer for Ukraine, its people and leadership, it also included a great deal of green.  He told a story of a past visit from an Eccumenical Cardinal from Rome, who noted that blue -- one of Canterbury's colours -- and yellow -- a colour signifying the church in Rome -- when blended, make green, the Colour of Hope.

Offering this photo of the garden flowers and these prayers for peace and hope.  May they bless your day.

O God, it is your will to hold both heaven and earth in a single peace.  Let the design of your great love shine on the waste of our wraths and sorrows, and give peace to your Church, peace among nations, peace in our homes, and peace in our hearts; through your son, Jesus Christ our Lord.  AMEN.

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.  Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is sadness, joy.  Grant that we 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. AMEN  (The Prayer of St. Francis)