Dedication Prayer for AIDS Caregivers
Prayer presented an the SACBC La Verna Conference for AIDS caregivers form the dioceses of Southern Africa, 24 – 26 October 2001)
WE BELIEVE that we are part of God’s dream for the church and the world,
and that God is shaping us, as the potter shapes the clay,
into the kind of human and church community
that is the dream in God’s heart.
We believe that God has called and chosen us
as the potter carefully chooses a lump of clay
to make what he has in mind.
We believe that when God sees that the church and the world
are not coming out right, not according to the divine dream,
God does not discard the clay and take another piece,
but re-works the same clay, shaping and moulding it
with firm but gentle hands, on the wheel of life.
We believe that God is shaping and reshaping us
through our response to the AIDS pandemic
to be like Jesus, the compassionate one,
as we continue the mission of Jesus in the world.
WE CONFESS…
that we sometimes become discouraged and disheartened
with the weight of people’s suffering.
We confess that we sometimes grow weary
and forget that God is with us,
when we feel overwhelmed by the enormity of people’s pain,
their grinding poverty, their desperation.
We confess that we sometimes forget
that God does provide and our needs will be met.
We confess that our faith in humanity is shaken
when people with AIDS feel abandoned and judged
and are treated as outcasts.
WE COMMIT OURSELVES TO:
being gentle with the crushed reed, the wavering flame,
so that the crushed reed will not be broken
nor the flickering flame quenched.
We commit ourselves to healing, helping and educating
so that the AIDS pandemic will be overcome in Southern Africa.
We will do what we can for the orphans,
and for others whose lives are bent or broken by AIDS.
We commit ourselves to shaping with gentle hands
the fragile and vulnerable clay which is each precious person given to us.
We will treat them with the same loving patience we ourselves feel
in the hands of the divine potter.
We will open our ears to listen like disciples
as God leads us forward on the next part of the journey,
the journey we are on together.
And we will join hands as we continue along the way,
the way of salvation.
AMEN