A wonderful aspect of my work is that I meet and develop relationships and friendships with people in different parts of the world. They’ve helped me to see the world a little differently and remind me that the world is full of beautiful people doing all sorts of interesting and wonderful things. But it also means that when disaster strikes, the odds of me knowing someone who has been impacted has increased.

I’ve been following the Covid-19 situation in India and late last week we gathered with some students and alumni of the MTD to pray for those impacted. Yesterday there were almost 350,000 new cases, and more than 2,700 deaths (and while that’s the official record, it is likely those stats are higher). There are shortages of oxygen and medicine, and people are desperately trying to get help for family and friends struck down with Covid-19.

I prepared the liturgy below for us, and I thought it might be helpful to share for others who are praying for the situation in India. I’ve been finding myself gravitating back towards liturgies – I love spontaneous prayers, but I also find that set prayers help me to pray things I wouldn’t otherwise pray, and they often give me words when I don’t know what to pray.

Father, Son, Spirit,

We hear of our suffering brothers and sisters

Shut-in by Covid-19

Of hospitals and doctors

Overwhelmed by those in need of help

We hear of needless deaths

Of oxygen and medicinal shortages

And we are unable to help

We see the growing inequality

Unjust distributions of vaccines

Rich countries turning inwards

Throwing leftovers to suffering neighbours:

It feels like darkness and death are winning

We’ve prayed for so long:

‘Your kingdom come,

Your will be done’

But where is Eden being restored in this?

Where is your Nazareth Manifesto?

Where is ‘good news being proclaimed to the poor’¹

And ‘the year of Jubilee’²

Being ‘fulfilled in our hearing’?³

Where is the power of your resurrection

In the midst of this suffering and death?

Have you abandoned the people you love?

With those whose lungs

Are inflamed by Covid-19

We cry out:

‘Have you rejected us O God’?⁴

With those desperately

Seeking help for loved ones

We cry out:

‘How long will you stand far off?’⁵

With those who have had to bury

Family or friends

Without ritual or saying goodbye

With those terrified

Of contracting this virus

Knowing it may be a death sentence

We cry out

‘from the depths of despair:

Lord, hear our voice!’⁶

Mixing their cries

With ours,

We hear your voice

Join ours in pleading:

‘My God, my God

why have you forsaken me?’⁷

Father, Son and Spirit,

We implore you:

Do all you can

To ‘be good news to the poor’

To make this ‘the Year of Jubilee’

To ‘fulfill this in our hearing’ even today.

Beloved Father,

Make your loving presence

Felt by those

Whose bodies are wracked by this virus

Surround and embrace

With your gentle peace

Those who are confused, hurt and suffering

In the midst of this chaos

Beloved Spirit,

Give renewed breath

To those with lungs too weak to breathe

Give renewed energy

To doctors and nurses struggling to stand

Give renewed hope

To family and friends who feel lost and abandoned

Beloved Jesus,

Walk the hospital wards

Touch and heal the sick

Enter the crematoriums and gravesides

And bring bodies back to life

Appear behind locked doors

To break bread and offer reassurance

That ‘you are with us to the end of the age’⁸

We also ask that you

Keep our hands

Steady on the plough

That although we may

‘Look around the universe

From which every trace of you

Seems to have vanished,’⁹

We will still be able to

– somehow – 

Say:

‘Hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come

Your will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.’

AMEN

___________________

¹ Luke 4:18

² Luke 4:18 cf. Isaiah 61

³ Luke 4:21

⁴ Psalm 60, 74, 108

⁵ Psalm 10, 13

⁶ Psalm 27, 130

⁷ Psalm 22, Matthew 27:46f

⁸ Matthew 28:20 cf. Luke 24ff

⁹ Lewis, C. S. The Screwtape Letters. Macmillan: New York, 1977.