Praying to discern the right approach to an issue you have identified is really important. As Catholics, daily prayer and discernment are an essential part of our faith life as individuals and as the church around the world.
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.
1 Timothy 2:1-2
Praying to discern the right approach to an issue you have identified is really important. As Catholics, daily prayer and discernment are an essential part of our faith life as individuals and as the church around the world.
Asking other people to pray for your work and for the issues you raise is just as important as getting other types of support. We believe that God guides us in our work to tackle social injustices everywhere.
Setting up prayer chains, prayer vigils, prayer and worship events at your local church or ecumenically in rotation with other churches and networks is a very powerful way to take action. These activities bring people together, they build community and respect for faith and religious practice and they give us spiritual support in our social action.
They can be created online, e.g. through WhatsApp, Facebook groups or other social media platforms, or they can take place in your local church, school or community centres.
Providing simple prayer resources will help gain support and raise awareness such as:
Tried and tested ideas in dioceses:
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Philippians 4:6
Social action and prayer
An important part of social action is prayer. Prayer is a powerful way to take action especially when supported by all the other actions outlined in this Toolkit.
As we have seen throughout this resource, social policy is a body of social wisdom, about human individuals in different societies, and about the structures of those societies that enable humanity to come to its fullness. In the context of prayer as social action – social policy is given a deeper meaning and a compelling reason for its purpose.
The purpose of prayer in the context of social policy is three-fold:
These purposes – personal, ecclesial and governmental– are the reason why prayer as part of social action is so important in the world today, and an integral part of evangelisation.
Social Justice and the common good are built up or torn down each day in the countless decisions and choices we make. We have a responsibility of discernment in prayer both to our neighbour and to our fellow human beings across the world.
So how best can we carry the values of our faith into family life, the workplace and the public arena? How best can we be responsible in what we do in our daily lives?
As we think about our faith and social action, we gain a deeper insight into what God is like, which in turn feeds our spirituality. In other words, God can use social justice to reveal himself to us and to others. The more we open our hearts and minds to God, the stronger our relationship with God becomes and the more we become aware of the needs of others.
To help us to do this we will now look at Scripture and peoples’ lived experiences in a set of Bible quotations and reflections from people around the world, drawing on social justice and faith issues.
They are grouped in pairs and you can use these quotations:
1a) Bread for myself is a material matter, but bread for my neighbour is a spiritual matter.
Nikolai Berdyaev
1b) “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind”, and, “Love your neighbour as yourself.”
Luke 10:27
2a) Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
Martin Luther King Jr
2b) “The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no-one to intervene…”
Isaiah 59:15-16
3a) You can’t divorce religious belief and public service… I’ve never detected any conflict between God’s will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other.’
James Earl Carter Jr (Former US President Jimmy Carter)
3b) “And God placed all things under his (Jesus’) feet and appointed him to be head over everything…” Ephesians 1:22
4a) But I can tell you that equating development with money, evaluating the human condition only in coin, is a great untruth. Human development cannot be equated simply with income level. For poverty is not just about low incomes; it is about loss of dignity, being treated as nothing, and basic needs not being met.
Njongonkulu Ndungane, Former Archbishop of Cape Town
4b) “You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”
Matthew 5.13-16
5a) Racism is a gaping wound in the body of Christ. We are each of us made in God’s image and to deny the humanity of any one individual is to strike at the wholeness of God’s creation.
Paul Boateng
5b) “People cry out under a load of oppression; they plead for relief from the arm of the powerful.”
Job 35:9
6a) Let us not despair. Let us not lose faith in man and certainly not in God. We must believe that a prejudiced mind can be changed, and that man, by the grace of God, can be lifted from the valley of hate to the high mountain of love.
Martin Luther King Jr
6b) “You have already been told what is right and what Yahweh wants of you, only this, to do what is right, to love loyalty and to walk humbly with your God.”
Micah 6:8
7a) Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead
7b) “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Acts 1:8
8a) These days the metaphor slips off the tongue rather easily. ‘Hunger and thirst for justice’ – we know the words … Do you know or remember what hungry and thirsty people feel? The experience is weakening, frustrating. To be hungry is not to have had what you need to live; to be thirsty is to be trapped in a body that has become a burden.
Rowan Williams, Former Archbishop of Canterbury
8b) Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, brothers, sisters, relatives, or your rich neighbours; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
Luke 14:12-14
9a) Where human lives are concerned, time is always short: yet the world has witnessed the vast resources that governments can draw upon to rescue financial institutions deemed ‘too big to fail’. Surely the integral human development of the world’s peoples is no less important: here is an enterprise, worthy of the world’s attention, that is truly ‘too big to fail’.
Pope Benedict XVI, Apostolic Visit to the United Kingdom, 2010.
9b) “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
James 1:27
10a) Do not turn your back on the needy, but share everything with your brother and call nothing your own. For if you have what is eternal in common, how much more should you have what is transient.
The Didache
10b) “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Philippians 2:3-4
11a) True reconciliation… means taking sides on behalf of the weak and the downtrodden, the voiceless ones. We cannot be neutral in situations of injustice and oppression and exploitation.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
11b) “Make your views heard… pronounce an upright verdict, defend the cause of the poor and the destitute.”
Proverbs 31:8-9
12a) No one must say that they cannot be close to the poor because their own lifestyle demands more attention to other areas. This is an excuse commonly heard in academic, business or professional, and even ecclesial circles. While it is quite true that the essential vocation and mission of the lay faithful is to strive that earthly realities and all human activity may be transformed by the Gospel, none of us can think we are exempt from concern for the poor and for social justice.
Pope Francis.
12b) “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
Amos 5:24
Prayer for Social Justice
Lord,
We pray that through your vision
of the kingdom here on earth,
we may work for social justice.
We do not want to fly from your world
but to engage within it.
Where there is injustice help us to find ways to eradicate it.
Where basic human rights are denied and life drains away,
be with us to fight for equality and for dignity.
May ours be voices for change and compassion where none exist.
Stimulate our hearts to provide food, clothing and shelter
for your children who have none.
Help us engage in a politics based upon gospel values,
serving you our Living God,
through our service of your creation.
May our world be transformed into the paradise you first dreamed.
Amen.
Prayer for World Leaders
All–powerful God,
source and end of all,
guide our leaders as they strive to govern and serve their peoples.
Send them your spirit of wisdom,
bless them with the strength and courage of servant leadership,
and the generosity to see and face the injustices of our time.
May world leaders commit to the way of peace,
and not by oppression or violence.
May their rule be fair and just.
Help world leaders develop a new politics
which values equality above status,
and the welfare of the common good above their personal ambition.
Amen.
In The Same Spirit – A Prayer for Understanding
We will not all stand in the same place on many issues,
but we can stand in the same spirit of our faiths.
And that spirit is one of hope, love and justice.
Whatever our faiths, the route to which we come to God,
is based on humility and not selfishness.
We will refrain from using language
which stereotypes or labels others as inferior or evil.
We will challenge the desire for religious, military, political or economic power
that costs other people’s lives.
In your Spirit, we cannot deny another person their basic right to live
or their desire to live as they would wish to live.
May this be our shared understanding.
Amen
<< Back to ‘Section 3: How to Take Action’
Persuade other people to join you in taking the issue forwards.
Getting your message across can be the most challenging part of social justice.
Social action is not just about identifying problems but also about finding potential solutions.
When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan.
