Praying with Paul: 'Filling the Earth with God's Goodness'

Dear Father, bestower of freedom,

Thank you for the love and the faith which you have put in your people. Please help them share this with each other and with the world. Let this promote the knowledge of all the good that is ours in Christ Jesus. Put such joy in our hearts and such gladness on our faces that people will want to know what makes us happy.

Help each of us to render such help and comfort, expressing our love, that the hearts of all your holy people will be refreshed. Help us not to make demands on each other, but to entreat, seeking consent, so that the good we ask from others might not be given through compulsion but through free will. Help us to bind up broken relationships. Help us to be willing to step into the breach, to enable others to make amends, even if it costs us money, effort, or time.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus be with our spirits. In his name I ask. Amen.