Prayer of Confession For Australia and for the Earth

Elder Nancy Maxwell

 

 

 

 

 

Holy One,

We come to you seeking repentance for our selfishness

For our dependency on lifestyles that foul your beautiful creation

Which have led to the disastrous change in our climate

Now fueling horrific wildfires in the astonishing land of Australia,

Killing all your sentient beings in the fires’ path.

We pray for rain, for healing, for comfort

Yet we continue living a life of consumption and contribution

To the situation we pray to alleviate.

 

We confess we continue to use fossil fuels.

We stock our homes with plastics.

We tear off hundreds of plastic bags at the grocery store 

To carry our purchases

Fully knowing the bags will not deteriorate for 1000 years.

We blithefully stick another plastic straw in our drinks.

We seem unmoved by the death we cause of sea birds, fish and water mammals,

Their bellies filled with plastic.

 

We, only we, are the cause of the desperate plight of the earth.

We, only we, can confess our participation in this devastation.

We, only we, can change the course of this downward spiral of earthly degradation.

 

Hear our confession, change our hearts, mobilize our energies, 

So that we, only we, can accept our personal responsibility 

And, as required of confession,

Move us to change our ways, cleanse our hearts, 

Turn our comfortable ways into excruciating uncomfortableness

So that we might be in the proper place for receiving forgiveness-

A place of changed behavior and changed hearts.

Amen

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prayer for This Time of Devastation 

Rev Elder Pat Bumgardner

 

 

 

O God,

For all you have made,

we give you thanks and praise.

All the earth is filled with your glory.

Thank you, too, for entrusting the care of the earth and all you have made

to us, your human children.

Help us, each in our own way, and with whatever authority we may have,

to have a care for justice and right relationship,

and to do whatever we can in any way we can

to heal and restore the earth

and combat the devastation of climate change.

We come to you especially crying out on behalf of

all those living in Australia,

all the wildlife, all the trees,

and all those living in Puerto Rico,

experiencing devastation after devastation.

Send rain to drench the fires,

and quiet the rumblings of the earth.

May everyone have all they need to recover fully.

May we move forward as a world more mindful of the impact

of all our choices and decisions.

We pray for healing, we pray for restoration, we pray for your help now.

In Jesus' name, +Amen   

 

 

 

 

 

The Cry of Creatures

Rev. Elder Margarita Sánchez De León

 

 

Beloved Divinity, artist of everything created, we also adore you. 

From our gratitude we ask you to look at your most humble creatures: the flora and fauna that inhabit this planet.

Thousands of your children die today from the uncontrollable fire in the Southern Lands, have compassion on us, your birds, mammals, reptiles. 

Give us shelter in your protective arms and extend your gaze to all this Australian land. 

Give us strength to emerge as a new creation united by the umbilical cord of your eternal tenderness. 

Look with love to the human being in their oblivion that we are here and that we are also your children. 

God triune, Holy Community, we cry out to you, Fauna, Flora and Earth and we beg you for Australia, which is also ours. 

Please don't forget to make us dream of a new sky and a new land, where we also, the humble ones, will be invited to your banquet. Amen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation. the old order has passed away; now everything is new!  All of this is from God, who ransomed us through Christ—and made us ministers of that reconciliation.  This means that through Christ, the world was fully reconciled again to God, who didn’t hold our transgressions against us,  but instead entrusted us with this message of reconciliation. -2 Corinthians 5: 17-19