Prayer of Lament for Owo, Nigeria
Dear UPRISE brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus:
It is with such a sorrowful, heavy heart that we reach out to you today and send from across the globe, many prayers and lamentations for the horrific, senseless attack of terrorist violence in Owo on you and your people on Pentecost Sunday, such a blessed day…we are so very sorry to learn of the loss of your family members in the Saint Francis Catholic Church.
In loud prayer to God today we beg Him for your protection and security, and for His grace and consolation in your grief. May this violence on innocent peoples cease, we ask in Jesus’s name, Amen.
Dear Lord our God, in our shock and grief we humbly kneel before you. In our despair in the midst of such hate, and in our sense of helplessness in the face of senseless violence, we lean on you and your Sacred Heart.
For the innocent men, women, and children taken so soon and their loving families experiencing unimaginable loss, we pray for your loving presence and consolation;
For the souls who allegedly committed these acts, help us pray, Lord;
For the Owo community at large who with understandable anger, grief, and fear, have lost priceless members, we pray;
For our Catholic church and all churches striving to be your light in the midst of such darkness beyond our comprehension, we pray;
Triune God, may we hold close in our minds, hearts, voices, and spirits this day the Prayer of Saint Francis as our claim of Your Love for us.
Make me a channel of your peace...where there is hatred let me be Your Love; where there is injury your pardon Lord, and where there's double true faith in You. Make me a channel of your peace...where there's despair in life let me bring hope; where there is darkness, only light; and where there's sadness, ever joy. Oh, Master grant that I may never seek so much to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love with all my soul. Make me a channel of your peace...it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; in giving of ourselves that we receive; and in dying that we are born to eternal life.
We offer this prayer in Jesus's Holy Name, Amen.
