A prayer for child like innocence

Allow us God to revisit our childhood and experience the innocence that made us children. May this weekend offer wonderful memories of how carefree and tension less we were as children. Dear God, may we for a little time forget deadlines, EMI's and work pressures and lie down on your inviting lap to close our eyes and feel comforted with your warmth and love. Help us Lord to truly unwind and release the pressures which have made us inhuman and angry. Speak to us Jesus and remind us of the virtue of being child like instead of always being adult, cold and ruthless. Join us and play with us Holy Spirit with the light, pleasing breeze that you are so that in the midst of all our problems we will trust your wisdom. May we dilute our problems with child modelled plans of relaxation and recharge ourselves with adventure and excitement from you God. Amen.

Prayer for the birthday of St. Mary

Dear God, as we celebrate the birthday of Mother Mary help us understand why you choose people for doing your work. Help us to accept your choice instead of always desiring what someone else has. Mother Mary was young, inexperienced, had no backing of the prevalent power structure and yet was chosen by God to bear his son. We understand now that she feared God but was fearless when it came to engaging with the injustice in society, her wisdom was much beyond her year's and she had love and compassion for people in the world. Help us today God to be fearless, to act beyond  our age when the need arises and to have love and compassion for the poor and needy. We pray for individuals in society who have been Mary like through their actions. Some of them have been attacked and done away with but never the less they live on like Mary. Help us Jesus to accept that we must be fearless in our life and not be scared of death. It is better to die with courage than to live with fear. May we intercede to Mary and become Mary in our life so that God selects us to be God's workers to bring about justice and peace in this world. Intercede for us Mother Mary, the fearless one selected by God. Amen.

Prayer to overcome wrongdoing

We commit ourselves God before you and offer ourselves for contemplation and correction. We look back at our life and seek your wisdom to understand and accept acts of hurt, misunderstanding, anger, hatred and high handedness that have come out of us. We seek forgiveness from you for every short coming and every insensitive remark or attitude that has slipped out from us. What has come out cannot be taken back but we can seek your forgiveness God to correct ourselves and learn to become better people. Help us to understand Jesus how we can look at the needs of people and give importance to them rather than to ourselves. Give us strength Holy Spirit to overcome our ego which is continuously tempting us to do evil and bad things. As we fold our hands God and pray, may it be a folding of our ego and our soul in commitment towards good and nice things. Amen.

Prayer for strength during grief

Give us we pray God the grace and understanding to grieve with those families who have lost a near and dear one. Show us the way to be with them, say words of comfort, be anything but judgemental, and offer our own stories of pain and grief as a means of empathetic friendship. Help us Jesus to offer hope like you did to Martha and Mary. We believe in you like they did and know that you are the resurrection and life. Those who believe in you will live even though they die. Lead us well Holy Spirit to pray for the departed that they rest in peace in paradise in the assuring presence of our fore fathers and fore mothers waiting with anticipation for the second coming of our Lord. May this hope lead us God to go to grieving homes with courage and strength to thank God for the life of those who move on to a better place while still being dear and valuable to their loved ones. Amen.

Prayer for Teacher's day

We thank you God for those who taught us and continue to teach us in schools and colleges and through conversations and messages. Our teachers inspired us, looked us in the eye and said we can do it, when people much closer had given up. We pray today for our teachers as they also need our prayers and good wishes. We take this day as all days to be thankful and respectful to what our teachers have done for us. We are guided by your life on earth Jesus to acknowledge the teachers who have taught us many things outside the class room and who stood for us when the world was against us. You made heroes out of ordinary disciples Jesus, and today we have become special because of your guidance and because of those who you chose to guide us. Thank you Holy Spirit for the spirit of commitment you have given to our teachers so that they taught us with very little and for even less but did it during sunshine and rain never for once giving up. Thank you Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Prayer during a festival

We thank you God for the opportunities to celebrate festivals with our brothers and sisters from different faiths. We hope that people live in harmony and use such opportunities to learn about one another and about our common histories. May the celebrations be a sharing of what we have and to make sure that no one lives in poverty and no one cries due to the lack of basic facilities.
As is said in Micah 4:3-5"...they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken it. For all people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever." Thereby God, may we use the opportunities that we get to celebrate, as times to feed the poor, visit the sick and elderly, meet friends and family and love everyone we know and come across. Amen.

Prayer at the beginning of the week

Loving God, there are many things to feel sorry for and get angry about. But there are several other things to feel happy and hopeful about. Help us at the beginning of the week to feel strong in hope and be fearless in our pursuit of happiness and peace. In our relationship with you God we understand that we should always be hopeful and any set back is only a learning to become stronger. Jesus, help us to identify our strengths and stick to them instead of plotting how to hide our weaknesses. We have been inspired by you to think that we need not be ashamed of our weaknesses because our strengths are far greater and stronger. Holy Spirit, we thank you for giving us the courage to believe in ourselves and survive in the midst of adversities and various forms of evil. Bless us Lord for a strong and happy week where the feeling of accomplishment will out shine everything else. Amen.

Prayer with intercession to St. Mary

Help us God to submit ourselves before you for great things. We are talented because we have been created by you but we haven't peaked yet and realised our dream because we haven't come under your shadow of grace. Mother Mary was a pious woman who was already spiritual and yet when she submitted herself to you God instead of society, she became inspirational and fearless to bear your son and became the leader of the early church. We intercede with our Mother Mary and seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit which will make us fearless to fight any and every injustice and realise every dream we have because it has God's blessings. May we also we pray be born of the Holy Spirit and become Jesus like to do the impossible. With deep and loving intercession of Mother Mary we pray. Amen.

Prayer of hope

We give thanks to you gracious God for small, big and unending mercies that you so graciously shower upon us. Help us to understand that you will never allow anything bad to happen to us because you love us unconditionally. May we look to you in prayer and love one another unconditionally because that is who we are and what we should do. We pray for tenderness, care, sacrifice and love to be part of our reportoire so that people may experience God when they talk to us and relate with us. Show us Jesus how you naturally slipped into the role of the son of God and served those on earth without expecting anything in return. Accompany us Holy Spirit because then we can only reflect you in all circumstances. We seek you God in all that we do. Amen.