Grace Cathedral
Grace Cathedral
Prayers for Special Occasions
The Home Prayer
Gracious God,
in your loving heart there is room for everyone — without exception.
Give us courage to be so at home in you that we dare make room for others.
Let your world be a place of delight and homecoming for all creation.
The Very Rev. Dr. Alan W. Jones, Seventh Dean of Grace Cathedral, 2016
A Prayer for
DACA Dreamers
Most Holy God, in your word we read so many stories about the ones you have protected as they left home in search of a better life. Your servant Ruth said, “Your people will be my people, your God, my God.” You loved her and found a place for her in Israel. Scripture inspires us to strive for greater hospitality to the poor, the weak and strangers.
You have blessed us with dreamers who arrived here as children and today seek a way to make their contribution to our common life. We pray for them now. We pray that they will be allowed to work, study and live in safety. We pray that those in authority may turn away from the demons of prejudice, fear and scarcity, that they will set their hearts on acts of mercy. We pray that you will give us vision and inspire our concrete actions as we seek to realize our goal of liberty and justice for all.
May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.
Malcolm Clemens Young, Dean of Grace Cathedral
A Prayer of
Thanksgiving
Great creator and mysterious lover of souls, we thank you for the blessings of this season: for the snow falling on the highest peaks of the Sierra, harvest in the great Central Valley, our ancient Redwoods, the first blades of grass we see on the Marin Headlands and the vast Pacific Ocean. Bless the creatures that call these lands and seas home: the whales, otters, coyotes, housecats, migrating birds, and all of us, their human siblings.
In the midst of great change and social forces that we do not understand, anchor our hearts in you. Save us from a false confidence in our self-sufficiency so that we might be carried by you to new depths of love.
Thank you for feeding our spirits and nurturing our bodies. Thank you for creating us to depend on each other and to live in communities so intricate that we could hardly recognize all that connects us. We pray for peace, wisdom, hope and grace.
We ask this in the name of the one who perfectly loves you, Jesus your son. Amen.
Malcolm Clemens Young, Dean of Grace Cathedral
Prayer for Mother’s Day
In the words of Mother Julian of Norwich: “As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother, and he revealed that in everything, and especially in these sweet words where he says. I am he; that is to say: I am he, the power and goodness of fatherhood; I am he, the wisdom and the lovingness of motherhood; I am he, the light and the grace which is all blessed love;”
Holy Mother God,
We give you thanks for all those in our lives who have shown us your love.
For those who have nurtured and inspired us,
For those who have taught and mentored us,
For those who have respected and befriended us.
May we also show your love to those who walk life’s path with us
Now and in the years to come. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Holy Mother God,
We pray for all those parts of the world where families are separated by war and persecution.
We pray for mothers in our own nation who are afraid each day for their children’s welfare.
We pray for all families whose lives are damaged by addiction and abuse.
Help us to have open eyes to see the needs of the world, open hearts to respond with love and open arms to welcome others in.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Holy Mother God,
We pray for all those women throughout the ages who have been vilified by your church.
For those whose vocations have been denied.
For those who have been victims of sexual double-standards.
For those who were persecuted as witches or dismissed as inferior beings.
Help us to build a world where every human being is honoured and every child is fed.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Ellen Clark-King, Executive Pastor and Canon for Social Justice