You may use one of the following prayers or this litany during your worship services or an online vigil. While these prayers were designed for use in a group setting, you are invited to use them by yourself for individual prayer or reflection.

PRAYER FOR AN END TO TORTURE

Loving Creator,

We praise you for your splendor of eternal light and sun of justice. Come and shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death.

As our problems and sufferings grow deeper and wider, so has our need to reconnect with you.

Quiet our minds and still our hands, to hear your breath and feel your caress that we know is always there for those who follow your ways of peace and love.

We confess our sin of complicity with violence against our brothers and sisters, each created in your image. We weep with shame for our role in perpetuating torture against your children. We join our hearts with all people of good will in our care for every human life. Together we cry out for the end of the use of torture. We cry out against the violation of life that torture represents.

We have seen the devastating physical, psychological, and emotional effects of torture on individuals and on societies in too many corners of the world. We bind our hearts with survivors of torture, for in their suffering, we know you are there.

We commit ourselves to never cease our call for an end to torture, to expose the horrible reality of torture and to support survivors of torture whenever possible.

We are grateful for the voices of survivors, calling us all out of the shadow of death. We are grateful for their belief in goodness and love, their belief that we can do better, that we are better, than torture. We know you are with all who suffer the pain and harm of torture and join our hearts with theirs.

We praise you for your splendor of eternal light and sun of justice. Come and shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death. Lead us on the path of peace and welcome us as one in spirit, unified in love for all.

Amen

Thank you to the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns for this prayer.

PRAYER FOR THE CLOSING OF GUANTANAMO

Voice 1: God of all creation, be with us this day and every day. Encourage us, your people, to seek justice and peace as we live one with another across the globe.

Voice 2 : Help us to honor the dignity and worth of every person, treating every person as your unique creation.

Voice 1 : O God, empower leadership that seeks to embody our highest ideals.

Voice 2 : We pray for the courage, as individuals and as a nation, to do what is right even when we experience fear and uncertainty.

Voice 1 : We pray for those who have been tortured and indefinitely detained at the detention center at Guantánamo Bay.

Voice 2 : We pray for the family members of those tortured, those who died in detention, and those held in indefinite detention.

Voice 1 : We pray for those working at Guantánamo today.

Voice 2 : We pray for wisdom for our leaders. We pray for the spiritual healing that our nation can experience from closing Guantánamo and putting an end to this dark and errant chapter in our nation’s history.

Voice 1 : We pray for an end to the divisions that perpetuate “othering” our fellow human beings – an end to racism, an end to xenophobia, an end to religious bigotry, and an end to any and all destructive divisions.

Voice 2 : O God of grace and peace, may your light shine ever brighter in each and every person.

All : Amen.

This prayer is also available in our bulletin insert, which you can use during worship services, in a newsletter, as a handout, or in a social media post.