A prayer for Mother’s Day and Mothering Sunday

The prayer may be divided into multiple voices, read by individuals or sections of the gathered congregation, e.g. left & right or east & west.  Thandiwe has written this for a congregation with clear sections known familiarly as west, mid, east and choir.  Replace those designations with ones that work for your situation.

The refrain in bold is said in unison by all voices.

The prayer leads directly into the Jesus Prayer, addressing ‘Mother-Father God’.

One:  Let us lift our voices in prayer and praise of mothers, and all who are mothers of mothers. In the name of God, our Mother, we call blessings upon your name.

May mercy and peace accompany you and follow you all the way home.

West: For young mothers and old mothers, first-time mothers and experienced mothers, adoptive mothers and foster mothers, teenage mothers and mothers in developing countries.

Mid: For all who labor like mothers, who tend people, plants, animals, and the earth, for all who vision, design, engineer and build a safer world for all.

East: For spiritual mothers and all whose love is like that of mothers.

Choir: For all who give birth to ideas or music, artistic works or any creation that nurtures and tends life, whose creativity births creativity in others.

May God’s creativity and strength accompany you and follow you all the way home.

West: For impoverished mothers,

Mid: abandoned mothers,

East: mothers who have lost children to suicide,

Choir: mothers who have lost children to genocide,

West: mothers of the murdered,

Mid: mothers of victims of violent abuse,

East: mothers of miscarriage, stillbirth and infant death,

Choir: mothers of the sick and dying,

West: mothers of the missing,

Mid: mothers of children killed in war,

East: mothers of children slain in the streets,

Choir: mothers of children who are in prison,
West: mothers of children who are institutionalized,

Mid: mothers of children who ran away from home,

East: mothers whose children will never come home,

Choir: mothers whose home has never had children,

May God’s comfort accompany you and follow you all the way home.

One: For all mothers who reach out to other people, who nurture
and feed the world.

West: For mothers in leadership positions: in public life, in business,

Mid: in academic institutions, in the arts and communication, in religion,
in the church;

East: for mothers who are behind the scenes: at home with the family,
in service jobs,

Choir: in volunteer organizations, in household industries, in religion,
in the church;

May the Spirit of God empower you and follow you all the way home.

One: May God, our Mother, bless all our mothers.
May their spirit inspire forever….
We lift this up in the name of Jesus who taught us to pray together:  (starting with Mother-Father God…)