Mother's Day Prayer

A kid shows her drawing of her mother, at Yixiu kindergarten in Suzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province, May 8, 2009, to celebrate the Mother's Day, which falls on May 10 this year.

This day we gather with eager hearts, hungry for your Word, yearning for the joy you promise in love. O God, together we hold a vision of your kingdom, a people of prayer and open hearts, a loving Body of Christ eager to learn and eager to share. You bless us, O God, and shine upon us with the mercy of your salvation. And your Good Earth has yielded its increase through those who have brought us great blessing.

On this day of celebrating your love, we lift to you those who have given us life, those who have loved us, those who have blessed us, and those who have taught us, our mothers. May your blessing pour out upon the woman who gave us birth, and those beautiful, strong women of faith who have been mothers to us along our journey.

We praise you, O God, for your gift of motherly love, both gentle and fierce, both strong and humble, both kind and true. Where we have been so blessed, we give our grateful praise, for you have provided loving hands that have worked so hard in raising us, cared enough to correct us, blessed us in ways we cannot have fully known as children.

We call forth your compassion upon every mother who has unknowingly caused pain and suffering. And, so we lift to you our mothers, so imperfect, also so wounded by this world.

We bless our mothers this day, no matter what they have done or left undone. We do this because we believe in your healing, and we believe in your love and we believe that you love every mother, good or bad; and we stand together with all mothers in solidarity, for we all are in need of your grace. Where we have failed because we did not know better, help us to forgive ourselves. Where we have seen your face in any woman who has been to us a mother, in her face we have seen your light and your love and we give thanks -- for where they have loved, they have kept your word and blessed us.

We lift to you the heart of every mother who has watched her child die of hunger, every mother who had been a victim of abuse, every woman who stands in protest against a world that massacres her children and renames them "collateral damage." We lift to you the prayer of every mother who has ever loved and lost.

We lift to you our Mother Earth. We lift to you our Mother Church. We lift to you, O God, your mother's heart; and although we cannot fully express our gratitude, help each one of us to be your blessing of love, a blessing straight from your heart.
Amen.

by The Rev. Jane Sommers