Evening Prayer Friday, 23 April 2021

Good evening everyone. Welcome to Friday evening’s prayers.

It’s over a year now since I’ve been writing prayers for this forum
and I’ve really appreciated the discipline of giving some serious thought
each week as to what I would like to share with you.
I know that not all members of our Cornerstone community
are able to access these prayers and some choose not to engage every day.
But the fact that we can think about one another
and have a chance to relate to God alongside one another
gives me a real sense of belonging –
and I hope you may have a similar experience.

Today, I have chosen a reading from the first letter of John,
which focuses our minds on God’s love for us and encourages us to love one another.
So, before I read it, I’d like us to listen to a setting of a verse from St John’s Gospel –
John 13: 34 – ‘A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.’

Please click on the link below:

A New Commandment I give unto You Song Lyrics. – Bing video

And now we turn to the first letter of John and hear what he says to us about love:

¹ See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. ² Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be, has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. ³ All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

¹⁶ This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. ²¹ Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God ²² and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. ²³ And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. ²⁴ The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: we know it by the Spirit he gave us.

1 John 3: 1–3, 16–24

So let us pray:

Loving God, we come to you humbly, but confident that we are loved
and that you are always there to support us on life’s journey.
Thank you for this generosity and constant care.
We pray that this assurance may challenge us to show love,
acceptance and tolerance of others,
whether they are strangers or people we feel close to.
Give us open and generous hearts
and a desire to show your love to all those we meet
or have contact with day by day.

We open our hearts in response to your love.
Lord, hear our prayer.

God’s family extends throughout the world.
This week, we have heard of several other countries
whose people are suffering and in need of relief.
So let us broaden our gaze and focus our minds for a short time
on some places and parts of the world
where God’s people desperately need our prayers.

First, we turn our thoughts to India.
We have been disturbed by the number of people who have died from Covid
in our own country – but we hear that, in India, it is now totally out of control.

And so, we pray:

God of compassion and love, we ask you to help us to remember that,
whatever our local concerns for family and friends,
your family stretches out across the world.
While we are seeing the most vulnerable in this country
vaccinated against Covid and hoping to go back to leading unrestricted lives,
our brothers and sisters in some other countries
do not have sufficient supplies
and may not have the ability to distribute fairly those vaccines which are available.

We pray especially for the people of India, where the health service
is now overwhelmed and both vaccines and oxygen are in short supply.
At the beginning of the pandemic, we heard the mantra,
‘None is safe until all are safe.’
But this generosity seems to vanish in the face of shortages.
So, we pray that your people here and throughout the world
will look at the bigger picture and see the benefit
of distributing the available vaccines to those in most need.

We open our hearts to those who suffer.
Lord, hear our prayer.

We read too of the plight of your people in several countries in South America.
In Brazil, where Covid is rife, people are also struggling with hunger.
In Venezuela, where the economy has collapsed,
children are receiving food from the UN World Food Programme.
In Chile, the number of Covid cases has reached a new high.

So, we pray:

Generous God, we pray that you will see the plight of those who suffer
from the inequalities in society which mean that
both wealth and support for health is retained by a few, when many suffer.
We know that there are inequalities in our own country,
but at this time, we pray especially for those who are rendered powerless
as they struggle day to day to make ends meet
while living in overcrowded conditions which exacerbate the spread of the coronavirus.

We open our hearts to all who are oppressed.
Lord, hear our prayer.

We read that countries across the Caribbean are still suffering
from the impact of the volcano eruption which occurred in St Vincent recently.

So, we pray:

Gracious God, look with compassion on those who have been impacted
by the eruption of the volcano in St Vincent.
Sustain those who have lost friends and family,
those whose homes have been destroyed.
Support all who are working to relieve their suffering.
May we respond generously through prayer and giving
to support all who call on our help.

We open our hearts in response to your love for us.
Lord, hear our prayer.

Keep us alert to the needs of others here in Britain and across the world.

We ask all our prayers in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.

Amen

Rosemary Kearsey