A Prayer for the International Day of Peace

by Jessica Hawkinson
Associate for International Relations and Education
Presbyterian United Nations Office

God of Grace and Mercy, bless this day and call us forth as your peacemakers.

Call us, as you called your disciples, to serve the multitudes — to bring what little we have in the hopes that it might miraculously be enough for a hungry world.

God of parables and teacher of life, grow in us compassion for the least among us.

God of strength, give us courage to cross borders, to search for and demand the larger freedom that each of your children so deserves. Lift up the voices of forgotten children in the crossfire of war, plagued by disease, familiar with starvation. Lift up the voices of the most vulnerable so that we might hear and heal.

Through your spirit, give us the vision of one world united — a body of nations no longer plagued by war, starvation and wrenching poverty, but risen up in search of your kingdom.

God of living water and broken bread, sustain us on the worldly journey wherever we serve — in the trenches and on the battlefields, in the refugee camps and hospitals, in our global places of worship, in our offices and homes.

Bless our work this day that we might call it yours; that we might call it blessed for the transformation of this broken world into one of justice and peace.

God of light, we ask you to map the journey of holiness, through the often endless pursuit of global commitments and realities of global need. Place us on this map and teach us faith, give us hope that your will — for peace, joy, freedom and an end to want might be done.

For peace we pray, amen.