Sunday September 25, 2022

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Cycle C

Let us pray for the nameless poor who cross our paths every day. For the poor widow in the grocery store parking lot unable to lift her purchases or carry her inner loneliness. For the nameless elderly man on the bench who cannot raise his head even to ask for money or food. For the toothless woman in the drugstore who cannot pay for medications to keep her alive. For the people unnoticed. For the nameless ones whose names we will never know or speak on our lips

 We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray for the strangers at the door of our nation. For the desperate ones who have traveled on foot to better their children’s lives. For people who do not speak the language of the land or the language of power or influence. For people who have walked in flipflops to access housing, education, and food. For people determined to simply live and whose stories of abuse, poverty, and injustice, we will never know or even imagine.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray for people who enter our church doors longing for a morsal of hope. For the young woman about to go to prison who shares with anyone who will listen that she was abused as a girl and to this day no one will help her face the consequences of such tragedy or even spend the time to help her see beyond her grief and shame. For people such as her. May we become more interested in knowing the experiences of people in poverty.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray for the people in mass graves in Ukraine. For the end of war and violence and hatred. For people who have fought to hold on to their country, their histories, and their lives. For people who died in fright. For the people buried one on top of another and who are nameless in silent mass graves. For people in unforms and in civilian clothes covered in dirt in large holes in the ground whom we will never know or hear their voices.  May their names be written in bold in heaven.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray for our elderly poor. For our grandparents whose bodies are covered in bedsores in filthy nursing homes. May the names of our poor ones be known to us. May their needs not be diminished in urine-soaked beds. For the elderly woman who can no longer speak up because of dementia. For the bent over man who shuffles down the hall bearing the facemask of Parkinson’s. For the names we will never know, even though they are written by hand on the doors of their nursing home rooms. For the stories of love that will be silenced among the adult diapers and bibs in the stale and stinky rooms of someone’s grandparents.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray for people whose lips are parched, those who long for a taste of nourishment. For those who live in the great chasm of poverty on this side of the grave. For those who thirst because they live in food deserts in our inner cities. For those who thirst for inner peace because they only know street violence and mass shootings. For those who cannot feast on justice because they stare at a prison wall every day. For those who thirst for hope but have no one to listen to their stories. For those whose lips are dry because they speak only lies.  

We pray to the Lord.

For people who bear the blisters of poverty on their bodies and within their hearts. For those who will never recover from surgery simply because of their depression. For those who bleed in the nighttime from skin cancer received in sunlight. For people without insurance or financial support. For people whose bodies are swollen from diabetes and heart disease. For people who will not go to a hospital for any reason because of the cost.

We pray to the Lord.  

Let us pray for those who wear purple and those who survive in rags. For the ultimate rich and desperate poor. For those clothed in wealth and those clothed in tattered hand-me-downs. For the names of our loved ones at our doors that will be known only by God. May the Lord shout out their names for all eternity when they knock on heaven’s door.

We pray to the Lord.