(2003.07.18)
2003 Common Prayer for Peace and Reunification of the Korean Peninsula
Gracious God,
2003 Common Prayer for Peace and Reunification of the Korean Peninsula
Gracious God,
We who live in a time of suffering gather our hearts in prayer
to you our Lord who cares for this world with your loving hands.
We live in a land
that cries out with the tears falling from 70 million crosses.
Crosses of separation!
Pain, more painful than words, hangs upon these crosses, O Lord.
The Joint Statement of June 15, 2000
was a symbol of peace which you granted to us
so that we may cast off our burdensome cross of division
and seek lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.
But even now, as we pass through this month of August in the year 2003
we strain under the cross of division.
Our failure to grasp your wisdom, our lack of your spirit-filled motivation
only adds to the weight of the burden we carry.
O God,
Forgive us our weakness.
You challenge us to face each other more often, to love each other more deeply,
to open our hearts to understand each other more clearly,
but we have failed in these things.
O God,
Grant to us new strength and power.
Give us the courage to fulfill your will in our lives and our nation"s history.
Lead us to close the chapter of fifty painful years under the Armistice.
Guide us to full commitment to end the war, and to move forward to peace.
Loving God,
We turn yearningly to you in our prayers.
May our faith in you blossom and bear the fruit of love for our 70 million sisters and brothers.
May the tears and pain of 70 million become the joy and song of 70 million.
Lead us so that through the autonomous actions of cooperation between North and South our boundaries of peace and mutual existence may become wider.
Hear this, our prayer of our heart"s deepest desire.
Grant to us the day when we shall sing for joy in peace, a unified people.
Give us this day, and may it come soon, O God.
We pray this in the name of the One who gives us peace, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
