A Prayer for Families Separated at Christmas

(Watch the prayer as prayed at the US-Mexico border on the occasion of La Posada Sin Fronteras)

Here we are, God, one human family, separated. O God, help us.

Tear down the walls that keep us apart from you and from one another.

We pray for people the world over who are separated from their loved ones this Christmas … We know that you suffer with them. Especially we pray for refugees and migrants who have been forced from their homelands by violence or desperation. We pray that someday all families would be united and that the rulers and powerful of our many nations would not stand in their way.

O God, we give you thanks for the beautiful day of Christmas, and for the privilege that it is to worship with the shepherds and angels at the manger of Jesus, whose family was forced by the edict of a King to travel far from home on the night of his birth. We know that we are standing on the shoulders of generations who have searched for your peace and your justice in this world.

And so we pray your blessing on us this day, O God. And we ask that you would give us strength and faith and hope and confidence that our dreams, as they align with yours, will be fulfilled in our lives.

Bless us this Christmas, we ask in Jesus’ name.

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