The prayers offered below would be useful as opening prayers for meetings, prayer services or other gatherings. Considering using them in prayer over loudspeakers as well for the whole community.
Lord, Jesus Christ
who reached across the ethnic boundaries
between Samaritan, Roman and Jew
who offered fresh sight to the blind and freedom to captives,
help us to break down the barriers in our community,
enable us to see the reality of racism and bigotry,
and free us to challenge and uproot it
from ourselves, our society and our world.
John Bucki, SJ
Good and gracious God, you invite us to recognize and reverence your divine image and likeness in our neighbor. Enable us to see the reality of racism and free us to challenge and uproot it from our society, our world and ourselves.
Sisters of Mercy
Good and gracious God, who loves and delights in all people, we stand in awe before You, knowing that the spark of life within each person on earth is the spark of your divine life.
Differences among cultures and races are multicolored manifestations of Your Light.
May our hearts and minds be open to celebrate similarities and differences among our sisters and brothers.
We place our hopes for racial harmony in our committed action and in Your Presence in our Neighbor.
May all peoples live in Peace.
Sisters of Mercy
Creator of all people, in our amazing diversity of size, shape, color, and giftedness: guide us, by your grace, to recognize the beauty and fitness of all whom you have made in your own image.
Give us gifts of humility and generosity of spirit to recognize in all people, the face of our Savior, Jesus, and to practice his commandment to “love one another,” toward the end of bringing harmony and peace among persons of all colors, origins, and abilities, for the sake of your Kingdom.
Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia
One God, in Three Persons, creator of one human species, in many hues: all who pray to you are descendants of Adam and Eve, all members of one race called “human.”
Forgive the blindness that causes our eyes to notice and magnify those things we regard as different from ourselves in others. Teach us to see clearly, that we, your children, are far more alike than we are different. Help us to put aside the racial prejudices embedded within us, and to see within every person the Child of God you created, our sister or brother, destined for Glory. In the name of One who died for all persons, of all colors, Jesus Christ.
Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia
God our Creator, you created humankind in your image, and blessed us with your love.
Help us to show that love to one another as we work for equality for all races in education, housing, public services, and employment opportunity.
Give us strength and courage to speak out against injustice, and to work for the transformation of unjust systems that keep some in bondage: that we may more fully live out your kingdom here on earth; through Jesus Christ your son, who came to set us free.
Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia
O giver of all good gifts, you have differently blessed and differently challenged your children.
Some of us have handicaps for which we need the aid of social services, and some of us find our quest for such aid hindered by the complication of racial discrimination. Help us to overcome barriers of all kinds that prevent your people from functioning fully and freely, and let us never tolerate the denial of equal services to anyone because of their race.
Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia
O God of all nations and all peoples: our nation once, in time of war, forcibly interned in camps, without trial and without just cause, many of our own people because of their Japanese ancestry. Grant us, by your grace, the strength and courage never again to treat as enemies any entire group of persons, solely because of the enmity of some members of that group, but to defend and preserve the basic human rights of all people, even in times of distress, for the sake of your Son who died for all.
Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia
O God of infinite mercy, we live in a land where the native peoples were moved, often by force, from the bountiful lands they inhabited to places of desolation. Help us to support them now as they seek to retain their rich native cultures. Open our eyes to the poverty and despair that so often accompany them through life, and give us the courage and will to change the systems that perpetuate injustice, for the sake of your Son our Lord.
Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia
Dear God,
In our efforts to dismantle racism, we understand that we struggle not merely against flesh and blood but against powers and principalities – those institutions and systems that keep racism alive by perpetuating the lie that some members of the family are inferior and others superior.
Create in us a new mind and heart that will enable us to see brothers and sisters in the faces of those divided by racial categories.
Give us the grace and strength to rid ourselves of racial stereotypes that oppress some of us while providing entitlements to others.
Help us to create a church and a nation that embraces the hopes and fears of oppressed people of color where we live, as well as those around the world.
Heal your family God, and make us one with you, in union with our brother Jesus, and empowered by your Holy Spirit.
Pax Christi
O God, who show a father’s care for all, grant, in your mercy, that the members of the human race,
to whom you have given a single origin,
may form in peace a single family
and always be united by a fraternal spirit.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.
Franciscan Friars
God,
You are the source of human dignity, and it is in your image that we are created.
Pour out on us the spirit of love and compassion.
Enable us to reverence each person, to reach out to anyone in need,
to value and appreciate those who differ from us,
to share the resources of our nation,
to receive the gifts offered to us
by people from other cultures.
Grant that we may always promote
the justice and acceptance
that ensures lasting peace and racial harmony.
Help us to remember that we are one world and one family.
Amen.
Australian Catholic Social Justice Council
© The Catholic Health Association of the United States