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A Prayer Offered by AFSC Board Chair Paul Lacey at the Interfaith Service for Immigrants’ Rights

Washington, D.C. - March 07. 2006

Paul Lacey leads prayer at rally for Immigrants' rights in Washington, DC.

Eternal Parent, Mother of wisdom, Father of Mercy, you have planted your light in every human soul. Through your prophets and teachers in every generation, you remind us that, as your children we are sisters and brothers of one another; and that your love for us gives us the power to make societies rooted in love, rooted in justice and wise care for all your children.

You have planted in us the longing to do justice and to be merciful, the capacity to feel and understand the lives of others.

You have given us the power to remember what our forefathers have told us of their hardships. Your scriptures remind us You know the heart of a stranger, seeing that you were also strangers.

You have given us the gift of moral imagination and the capacity to feel for the conditions of others and to act for their good.

God of justice and mercy, we come here today to witness for justice for the stranger, justice for the poor and disenfranchised, justice for those who come to this country willing to do our hardest jobs, our least-rewarded jobs, to feed their families and give their children hope for the future.

We come here to witness for their children, who need safety, security, the benefits of good education, the promise of a good life.

We come here to witness for laws that protect the strangers, that will give them equity in this society, laws that will make it possible not to be strangers any more.

Guide our actions and give us the words to speak to the hearts of our leaders in government, to reach the light in their consciences, so they will shape just laws.

Help us to be instruments of your justice.

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