Lord our God,
when your Word frightens us because it demands everything of us,
grant that it may also be the strength that sets us free from ourselves
and enables us to do more than we ever dared to imagine.
Grant that, moment by moment, we may grow towards true freedom,
for which Christ has shown the way,
He who goes before us as our universal brother,
drawing us through his Easter towards the Life that has no end.
Lord our God, who came into this world to share with us the fullness of your life,
open our hearts to receive the signs you offer us.
You offer us the sign of weakness: a newborn baby lying in a manger.
Open our hearts to this presence of fragility.
You offer us the sign of humility, by washing the feet of your friends.
Open our hearts to service.
You offer us the sign of bread.
Open our hearts to sharing.
You offer us the sign of the cross, a crucified God who dies outside the city between two criminals.
Open our hearts to your friendship with all.
You offer us the sign of fraternal community,
open our hearts to gathering together without exclusion.
Living God,
we believe in the life that leads to eternal life,
but help our lack of faith.
May your Word, in the Scriptures, in others, and in your many signs,
illuminate our paths, which are still so dark…
until the day begins to dawn
and the Morning Star rises in every heart.
We pray this through Him, your Son, Jesus Christ,
who lives with you in the communion of the Spirit.
for ever and ever.
Jesus, standing on our shores in the early morning,
when the night has been long and fruitless,
we dare not ask you,
but we know it is You!
Jesus, speaking suddenly from the open Book,
when questions have remained unanswered for so long,
we dare not ask you,
but we know it is You!
Jesus, present in the brotherly word and hand,
when loneliness weighed heavily on our shoulders,
we dare not ask you,
but we know it is You!
Jesus, sharing bread, aid and care,
through so many lives given,
when endless wars overwhelm so many peoples,
we dare not ask you,
but we know it is You!
Jesus, bringing peace, standing as the architect of reconciliation,
when the cycle of violence seemed hopeless,
we dare not ask you,
but we know it is You!
Risen Christ,
the tomb is empty, the stone has been rolled away,
yet our gaze remains fixed on the past, prisoners of memory.
We seek You among the dead, You, the Living One!
Christ, come and roll away the stone from our hearts,
free us from the false security of knowledge that seeks to control everything,
unleash within us the desire to create a new world,
in joy, in dance, in acts of brotherhood…
Open us to the surprises of your grace, Risen Lord!
Stay with us, Lord, just as you chose to stay,
as evening fell, with those two pilgrims who longed for your presence to linger.
Stay with us to guide us through the light and shadow of our journeys,
and do not abandon us in the face of our world’s troubling realities.
Stay with us, open the Book once more to enlighten us with this Word,
inexhaustible, so rich in humanity.
Stay with us, for we live through relationships and from them receive meaning,
hope, light,
just as you, you live only through the Father’s Love
given without measure by the Spirit.
God our Father,
at the brand-new dawn of your Promise,
Mary, in faith, though she could see nothing, sang her Magnificat.
In you, she rejoiced with joy.
Standing at Cana, standing at the foot of the cross,
she watched for the signs of the Kingdom to come.
Inspired by her example, may we become people of praise,
delighted to serve You by serving our sisters and brothers,
through Jesus, the Firstborn of the new creation.
Lord Christ, may your call to life still ring in our ears and in our hearts.
May our eyes be opened to your light,
and may the power of your Resurrection permeate our very being,
so that we may already live that eternal life which you promise
and bring comfort and hope to the world.
All things may be reborn through the Breath of your Spirit,
in communion with the Father, in You, the Resurrection for ever and ever.
Lord Jesus,
this evening, at the invitation of Pope Leo XIV, from East to West,
all those who look to you, the Crucified and Risen One, have gathered together.
To ask you to shower us all with your great Easter blessing,
a blessing of PEACE.
Did you not offer it one day, once and for all?
God’s gifts know no bounds of space or time.
We gather to place ourselves under this blessing, with our world in the grip of
conflicts of unprecedented violence, which rob millions of innocent people of their lives.
You are among them; you are one of them.
And you are also praying fervently with us
that a rainbow of reconciliation may rise once more,
between peoples, between continents, between cultures and between religions.
May your Peace finally prevail, Jesus, the Risen One!
But above all, grant us the Spirit
so that we may know how to welcome it within us,
this unarmed and disarming peace.
Since the day you gave us your peace… what have we done with it, Jesus?
Your peace is not neutral.
It does not turn a blind eye to injustice.
It does not stand idly by when action is needed.
Never let us forget that your peace is a struggle,
the fruit of your Paschal struggle.
We implore it for those who today face violence.
Be their strength, their light, their inner resilience.
Prepare, through all the humble, all those who suffer,
the turning of hearts?
and make us, in our humble place, participants in this conversion
Until your Kingdom comes, Jesus, our PEACE.
