SOUL SURMISE

BELFAST MARATHON PRAYERS 2025

(On Belfast Marathon Day 2025 Fitzroy recorded the BBC Radio Sunday Morning Service (on at 8.05am). Clare Orr read these prayers. I hope all runners, the city and all of us Weill benefit from them...)

 

Father,

As we gather together this morning, we think of the many runners on the roads of our city, taking on the huge challenge of completing a marathon.  What an achievement to reach the start line today, with months of training and preparation. 

We pray for strength, perseverance, endurance, hope and joy for every runner or walker taking part.  Many will be running to raise money for a cause they believe in, or in memory of a loved one, or maybe just for the love of running. 

Whatever the reason, we pray for supporters on the sidelines cheering them on, encouraging them when it gets difficult, helping them to keep going right to the finish line.

As the runners travel through each of the four corners of our beautiful city; from East to West, from North to South, we pray that we will be a city that continues to look forward and not back, that we are a city who strives for unity, looking out for all those who live here. 

May we be a city who cares for the vulnerable among us, and may we support and encourage those organizations who work alongside our neighbours who are struggling.

As we all journey this race of life, may we create habits and practices that enrich us and bring joy. At times we feel like life is good and we are coasting, at other times we feel like we have hit the wall. 

Thank you that we are not alone – you go before us and stand beside us. You are the blossom in the wilderness, our river in the desert.  May you bring us supporters and cheerleaders when we need them, or may we ourselves be those who bring comfort and support to others when needed.

We thank you for your steady faithfulness and reassurance, that those who hope in the Lord will run and not grow weary, will walk and not be faint.

We pray these words in the name of Jesus.

Amen

PRAYER AROUND THE CROSS

 

Holy God

Creator and Sustainer

Victim of our desire for independence

Hurt in heart by our pushing you away

God tonight our independence

Throws the world into perpetual suffering

Our desire for things unhealthy to us

Sends the world into constant pain

Yet, against all this

Your eternal grace has come looking for us

Your lavish love has given your all for us

Your tender mercy has embraced and forgiven us

God we thank you for Jesus

For this cross

That while we were still sinners Jesus died for us

God you have died for our injustices

For all that we have done to your world

For all that we have done to one another

For all that we have done to ourselves

So, around this cross

We gather

And cry out to you

How long must we sing this song

How long must we pray these prayers

Lord, give us a new song

A song of peace and shalom 

And a just and loving world

And so gathered here

We ask that you will take us

Broken too

Damaged

Lord, on this Good Friday

May we die to the old ways

And be grafted into the new

God, heal us at this cross

Repair us

Save us from each other and ourselves

And then send us out into this world

With love and peace and justice

Make us Kingdom bringers

Peace builders 

Lovers of God and humans and earth.

In Jesus dying name we pray

AMEN

PRAYERS INTO A CHAOTIC POLITICAL WORLD

(Prayers in Fitzroy on a week that it is difficult to believe the news...)

 

Almighty God

The great energy who created the world

The energy of love that holds it in place

We come to you at a time of deep and wide uncertainty

The world seems to be moving

Political power blows like a hurricane 

Whirling and swirling around us all

We feel everything shift underneath us

Hope is pumping low

 

Almighty God we need you like a rock

Like a firm foundation

Like a fortress

Like a refuge

God, in our confusion

We need the Holy Spirit to give us a peace beyond understanding

A calm that we can hunker down and allow the storms to blow

That we are safe.

 

Almighty God

In our refuge

Pour into our souls hope

Hope in something bigger

Something stronger

Something more righteous

God enlighten the eyes of our hearts

To see the impact of ascension

Jesus at your right hand

With power over all things.

May Jesus be our hope.

 

Almighty God

Make us conduits of hope

Messengers of hope

Sharers of good news in the silence

Particle of lights in the dark

Make us the subversive resistance 

Of the Kingdom of God

That Kingdom of compassion and care

Of peace and justice

Of sacrificial giving

Of love and service.

 

God protect us from bombardments of bad news

Help us manage the deluge of lies and hate 

And the hurt of the sad truth.

 

So God,

As we stand in a place of a vertical act of worship

We gaze horizontally across the world

Ukraine, Palestine, Sudan and everywhere else

We pray for the leaders of nations

And the leaders of leaders

We pray into the present political chaos across our world

We beg for restraint

Of bullying in speech, swagger and military intent

We pray into the present unstable mess

And ask you to interrupt

With sense and wisdom and compassion

We pray for shalom

Salvation of justice and peace. 

In Jesus name

AMEN

PEACE IN YOUR HEART by BLUE ROSE CODE - As Prayers At Fitzroy Communion

I see you on the road

Trying to find your way home

And I wish you peace in your heart

Bring your boat to the shore

Don't be alone anymore

And I wish you peace in your heart

With a love you will always know

 

From the moment I heard Blue Rose Code’s (I Wish You) Peace In Your Heart I wanted to use it in Fitzroy. 

As a pastor I am aware of anxieties, pain and grief that a congregation carries. I look back on last year and know that many have not had it easy.

Blue Rose Code’s main man Ross Wilson has written this near benediction. It isn’t about everything being fixed. It is about a deeper peace within as we “find our way home”. 

There is the added “a love that you always know.” I am ever praying and preaching that Fitzroy know the truth of Emmanuel - God with Us. That they are always loved.

When I considered how to share this song I knew that Caroline Orr with Peter Greer on piano could do it absolute justice. I was not wrong. It was a beautiful performance.

I set it in our monthly communion service. I used it as the prayers before the communion, followed by the prayer below that I riffed off Ross’s lyric. Then during the actual sharing of the bread and wine Caroline and Peter reprised the song.

It worked beautifully. We will do its again.

 

My prayer (flowing on from the song)

 

As we gather around this table I pray for peace in our hearts

I pray for a year that is easier on our souls

Easier on us all

 

When the broken world takes a piece of us

When it snaps our hearts into pieces

May a piece of this bread

Symbol of a piece of Jesus, given for us

Jesus among us

God with us

The Spirit our companion, counsellor and comfort

May we know peace on ours hearts.

 

When our souls and flesh and blood

Get poured out by this world’s anxieties, grief and trauma

Leaving your energy and faith and hope wizened and dry

May this cup of wine

Symbol of Jesus lifeblood poured out for us

Forgiveness of sins

Covenant of love

Fortitude of resilience 

Be a life transfusion

God with us

Making himself perfect in our weakness

May we know piece in your heart

 

We are another year old

Watch the darkness burst into gold

When we find that peace in our hearts

With a love we will always know

There is a love we will always know

 

As we gather around this table I pray for peace in our hearts

I pray for a year that is easier on your soul

Easier on us all

 

In Jesus name

Amen

 

watch the service (Song and prayers at 1.20.25) - HERE 

IS THAT WHAT THE ONES YOU KNOW ARE TELLING YOU?

 

You pay that for this hotel room

I’m lying in it here for free

Took a train, first class ticket

Then a cruise across a pretty sea

We’ve come to take your houses

Steal all your government handouts

Threaten all of your religion rights

Grab your culture and stamp it all out

 

Is that what the ones you know are telling you

About what they are really here to do?

 

The ones that I know are telling me

That they just want to be free

 

Free from the pounding in their heads

Free from the knot in their gut

Free from the bombs down their street

Free from the bullets in the baby’s cot

Free from the humanitarian disaster

Free from the devastating destruction

Free from the years in refugee camps

Free from the Taliban’s hateful instruction.

 

The ones that I know are telling me

That they just want to be free

 

Is that what are the ones you know are telling you

About what they are really here to do?

 

This began on the week of the racist attacks in Belfast in August 2024. 

There was a mischievous (kind word for it) meme about how asylum seekers had got free hotels that we paid big money for. It was not at all thought through and seemed to be making big statements from a distance. 

Spending time with those just arrived on our shores, as I have been able to do through Janice’s work in Fitzroy, I hear a deeper story that generates more empathy, sympathy and compassion. 

“Don't mistreat any foreigners who live in your land. Instead, treat them as well as you treat citizens and love them as much as you love yourself.” 

      - Leviticus 19:33

STAMMERING PRAYERS FOR THE MIDDLE EAST

the Sunday before October 7th... thinking of Israel/Palestine/Lebanon... prayers in Fitzroy...

 

God of love

Who loved the world so much that he gave...

We worship you, give you praise

God of peace

Whose angels heralded in Christ’s arrival on earth with “Peace on earth and good will to all human beings..”

 

God who hears us in the dark

Because you are up all night

Our world is in a violent, frightening, bleak moment

We can hardly watch the news for the horror

In the place Jesus walked it is mayhem and death

It has been a year, in the recent killings

And we feel hopeless

Helpless

We don’t even know how to pray anymore

 

God, it is such an emotional, divisive conflict

You feel that if you say anything about it

Someone will attack you for prejudice

 

So Lord we stammer a few prayers...

 

Lord we pray for humanity to be restored

Where whether state or rebel forces

All will see the other as themselves

Where every victim will be seen as made in your image

And compassion rather than hate will overcome

 

Lord we pray for the safety of the people 

Comfort for those injured

God of love be around those who have lost loved ones

Children living through the trauma

We pray that ceasefires will be called immediately

So that humanitarian needs can be met

We pray for those NGOs who are trying and planning to help

 

Lord we pray for wisdom and vision

Not only in that local geography 

But among world leaders

May the UN be given imagination

Strategy and courage to end the violence

And bring all side together

May all sides see their people as more important than their land

And compromise for the peace and prosperity of their people

 

God we are weak in belief

We are heavy with doubt

But we seek you God of love and peace

To interrupt 

We know about such interruptions 

And are thankful for the peace we now enjoy

As we live between the 30th Anniversaries of our ceasefires

We long to hear news of ceasefires in Israel, Palestine and Lebanon

 

In the name of the Prince of Peace we pray

AMEN 

PRAYERS FOR INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE - MYLIE BRENNAN

(For International Day Of Peace, I asked Mylie Brennan to pray in Fitzroy... This is Mylie's prayer)

God above, as we gather in the wake of the international day of peace, we acknowledge it is difficult at times to feel that our pleas for peace are heard. We have looked on in horror at Gaza for months with no end of conflict and devastation in sight. We think of Ukraine, of the DRC, of Lebanon, Yemen, and we - people made in your image - cry out in grief for our fellow people who are dying and suffering in the wake of conflict. Lord hear our prayers.

While we hold the suffering of our brethren in our hearts, we also acknowledge we have seen the power of peace. We have seen weapons laid down, dialogue between enemies, and even some of the hardest of hearts softened. We believe you are God of peace, of shalom, and that you have moved in our world and in our city, and you will continue to bring light into darkness.

You said “blessed are the peacemakers” and today we pray that you will give us the strength and tenacity to be not just peacekeepers, but to be peacemakers. Lord, give us the humility to see the hardness in our own hearts and the ability to move beyond our own propensity for division. Thank you for those who have gone before us who have modeled humility and persistence. Remind us to continually lift each other up, because we want to be a community of peace, and we know we are stronger and more impactful together.

So we pray today for peacemakers to rise up in the midst of conflicts around the world, within governments and neighborhoods and families, and we pray for your will to be done through us, oh god of peace. Amen.

PRAYERS FOR THE SEASON OF CREATION

Lough Neagh... environmentally damaged...

 

Churches are currently observing a Season of Creation and so to launch it I asked David and Sheila McNeill to pray us into it. This is their beautiful script. 

 

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for the gift of your wonderful creation.

Thank you for flowers which appear in spring and summer, filling the countryside with colour and beauty. For primroses and violets, meadowsweet and honeysuckle, water lilies and ragged robin.

Thank you for our recent Fitzroy trip to Rathlin Island, where we enjoyed sunshine, fellowship and the beautiful landscape decorated with purple heather alongside golden gorse.

Thank you for the huge diversity of fauna we see around us - for all animal life, feeding, breeding and living in the land, sea and sky. Thank you for squirrels and foxes, kingfishers and ravens, lizards and tadpoles.

For mini-beasts which fascinate us with their stunning detail - for the wings of a butterfly, the spots on a ladybird, the stripes on a bee and the dazzling dance of a dragonfly.

Thank you for habitats, which enable each creature and plant to thrive - for water, soil, sand and rocks, for temperature, humidity and aspect – each contributing to create environmental niches suited to sustain a wonderfully rich biodiversity.

Thank you for our unique Irish habitats, for fields, meadows, boglands, our coastline, dunes, waterways, mountains, valleys and precious woodlands.

Thank you for our hedgerows which border fields and roads, for blackthorn, hawthorn, rose, holly, spindle and crab apple, creating green corridors across the countryside for birds and animals to live and travel safely.

Thank you for our waterways, teeming with life in and on the water, and for the banks clothed with plants and trees. We are saddened to see Lough Neagh and our river highways marred by the growth of blue-green algae. And we pray for wisdom for those seeking to restore these jewels of our environment.

We pray for the farming community, the stewards of our countryside. We pray that they would have sustainable livelihoods where the harvesting and restoring of the earth’s resources is balanced, and fragile habitats are protected for wildlife.

We pray for the fishing community, tasked with dipping into your oceans for food. We pray for the responsible control of fishing methods and for fishing rights to provide food and maintain the beauty and balance of sea life.

We pray for those with political responsibility to protect and maintain our environment. Help Andrew Muir, our environment minister, in consultation with farming and wildlife experts, to make wise decisions and to implement the necessary changes. 

Finally, Lord, we pray for ourselves. Help us to live gratefully and tread lightly in your majestic, yet fragile, world.

Amen.

SURMISING (AND PRAYER FOR) THE SOUTHPORT STABBINGS

I cannot get these wee girls out of my head. So lovely. So innocent. So excited. Having such fun. Such long lives ahead of them. 

And their parents. Oh their poor torn up parents. Who couldn't see how it could happen or see how they can live on with what has happened.  

 

Dark strikes light

Horror kills fun

Evil massacres dance

Dark strikes light

We are left with the bloody scene of the unbelievable

In the security cordon of the unfathomable

In the rest of our lives confusion

Mystery.

 

Mysteries

Intrigue in the novel and film

But in reality

Their crashing in on our lives

Smashes our hearts to pieces

The shards blow out from family homes

Across communities

Cutting deep.

 

Today you grieve in the mystery

The mystery of badness

The mystery of randomness

The mystery of why you

The mystery of never being explained

Yet having to learn to live in that mystery.

 

I believe in another mystery

The mystery of goodness

The mystery of love

The mystery of comfort

Jesus called the Holy Spirit a comforter

So, I pray for you

That in the mystery of why

In the mystery of what

You will know the mystery of how

Comfort can

Against the odds 

Reach into the depths of your broken heart

And mysteriously give you resilience

As you walk into the grief

Of the days and years to come

God have mercy.

 

 

 

PRAYERS FOR TWELFTH PARADES

Lord we come before the God of peace

Of love and of grace

We worship you as holy

Utterly different than what we know

Or have intuition toward

A God who became one of us

Gave up all

To take on flesh

In a manger

To wash feet

To die, "the Lamb Of God who takes away the sin of the world"

Lord we seek your presence

In this our Twelfth week in Northern Ireland

We pray for safety

Safety for those building bonfires

Those around bonfires

Those who control bonfires

And the neighbourhoods around bonfires

We pray for safety for the security forces and fire service

We also pray for safety for the parades

We pray for grace and tolerance from those marching

And from those in the neighbourhoods they walk through

May there be peace on our streets

And no headlines on our TVs.

 

Lord, we yearn for your presence this week

Lord interrupt and remove the hate and sectariansim

As well as the flags and effigies from the bonfires

Instead Lord, pile up our false caricatures

Our myths and lies and exaggerations of one another

May we stop the cycle

To repent from generations of animosity

To become peacemakers

Lovers of the enemy

Followers of Jesus in the Kingdom of God

Lord interrupt with your love and peace

And that holy justice that lays down its own life for the crimes committed against it

Lord may your will be done

On the streets of Northern Ireland this week

In the name of the King of Kings.

Amen