Today is All Saints Day. On this day each year in the ecclesiastical calendar the Church celebrates all of God’s saints, living and dead, who have magnified God’s name by the way they conducted themselves in life. We thank God for the true saints we see all around us, and especially for those saints we have known or known about who have transferred from the Church Militant to the Church Triumphant, and are with God in eternity. Therefore let us worship God, praising Him for all the saints.
Pastoral Prayer
We praise and thank Thee, O Lord our God, for all Christians of all time whom Thou hast called into the worldwide fellowship of the Christian Church. We thank Thee for their strength of character, for the abiding tenacity of their faith, for their insistence to follow Thee and to be subjects in Thy kingdom rather than to become mere inhabitants of the world. We thank Thee also for all peoples of all other religions, who, by the teachings of their traditions, have been called into Thy presence. Though we do not all believe the same things or engage in the same religious practices, yet hast Thou given to all of us a conviction beyond ourselves that finds its ultimate destination in Thee. Help all people everywhere to strive to live together in harmony, seeking more to discover their similarities rather than to highlight their differences.
We pray for nations who have created military standoffs with one another, and who cannot seem to discover how to lower tensions and to seek greater harmony. We pray also for individuals who are constantly at sword’s point with each other. Bless those who seek to hurt each other by words or deeds. Grant them the wisdom which was espoused by Jesus, urging all of us to refrain from hurting one another and to love one another, despite the challenges which exist for doing so. Give strength and patience to the peacemakers, Lord God of peace.
We pray for those who have grown weary in well-doing. Help them to see that their efforts are important not only to those immediately around them, but to the entire world. Grant to each of them a sense of the difference we can make when we seek to transform Thy will into the ways of the world. Give to each of us if only a mere glimpse of what we are capable of doing to assist in building Thy kingdom on earth, even as Thou hast built it eternally in heaven. These and all our prayers we offer in the name of Jesus, who masterfully has ushered us into Thy presence. Now we pray together as he taught his disciples, saying, Our Father….