Here’s
another prayer of intercession for a Blue Christmas (or Longest Night) worship
service. This one comes from a service prepared
by the All Saints Episcopal Church in Atlanta.
Prayer of Intercession for
Blue Christmas
God,
we come to you as Christmas dawns with pain growing inside us.
As
the nights have been growing longer,
so
has the darkness wrapped itself around our hearts.
In
this season of our longest nights,
we
offer to you the pain in our hearts,
the
traumas that some of us cannot put into words.
Loving
God, hear our prayer,
And in your merciful love, answer.
Compassionate
God,
there
are those among us who are grieving over what might have been.
A
death or loss has changed our experience of Christmas.
Once
it was a special day for us too, but someone has died or moved away.
Or
we have lost a job, or a cause.
We
find ourselves adrift, alone, lost.
Lord
help us find our way.
Loving
God, hear our prayer,
And in your merciful love, answer.
The
Christmas season reminds us of all that used to be and cannot be anymore.
The
memories of what was, the fears of what may be, stifle us.
All
around us we hear the sounds of celebration.
But
all we experience is a sense of feeling blue.
Please
be near us this night.
Loving
God, hear our prayer,
And in your merciful love, answer.
I
invite you to offer your own intercessions and thanksgivings
either
silently or aloud.
--silence--
The leader offers a concluding
collect.
~
from Blue Christmas Service, December,
2008 prepared by the All Saints Episcopal Church in Atlanta. To see the whole service, click here: http://allsaintsatlanta.org/wp-content/files/Blue%20Christmas%20Service.pdf
