Synod disability inclusion advocate Andy Calder has offered the following adapted prayer for use during Mental Health Week (7 -14 October) and Mental Health Month in Victoria (7 October to 6 November).
We remember creation, breathed into life by God’s Holy Spirit:
places of beauty and brilliance,
places of grandeur and spectacle,
places of extravagant diversity.
We pray, creating God,
for places damaged and degraded
for people scraping a living from land made fruitless by human greed.
Silence
Help us to live sparingly and to care for creation.
Gracious God: Hear our prayer.
We remember humanity, breathed into life by God’s Holy Spirit:
people of beauty and brilliance,
people of gifts and grace,
people of extravagant diversity.
We pray, healing God,
for people who live with their own or another’s mental illness;
for people facing the stigma caused by misunderstanding about mental illness;
for people struggling to find help when they need it.
Silence
Help us to be welcoming, helpful and more aware of those things that make for
mental wellbeing for others and ourselves.
Gracious God: Hear our prayer.
We remember the Church, breathed into life by God’s Holy Spirit:
a community of beauty and brilliance
a community of love and compassion
a community of extravagant diversity.
We pray, inspiring God,
for congregations working out how to be one family, offering an effective witness
to your love in the world;
for churches with projects that offer help to people living with mental illness;
for ourselves and people in our own families and community who need to be
understood, accepted and loved.
Silence
Help us to be willing to change ourselves and inspired to change the world.
Gracious God: Hear our prayer.
In the name of Christ.
Amen
Adaptation of Revd Michaela Youngson’s prayer (UK).
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