Sample Intercessions for December 5, 2004

2nd Sunday of Advent, Year A
December 5, 2004

Things, events, and news items to keep in mind:

• Click here for this Sunday's readings.
• December 1 is World AIDS Day.
• December 2 commemorates the 24th anniversary of the death of the American martyrs in El Salvador: Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel, and Jean Donovan in El Salvador.
• December 4 commemorates the 41st anniversary of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy.
• December 7 commemorates the 63rd anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
• December 8 is the 150th anniversary of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception and is a holy day of obligation.
• November marks one of the bloodiest months in the war in Iraq.
• Local Bay Area soldiers die in combat.
• Severe cold weather continues in the Bay Area.
• Jury begins deciding the fate of Scott Peterson.

The following are just samples meant to inspire your work. Use them as ideas for your own assembly's intercessions. Read 10 Principles for Writing Intercessions and Step by Step Guide to help you write your own.

Presider
Up, Jerusalem! Stand upon the heights.
Let us cry out in the desert: “Prepare the way of the Lord!”

Deacon/cantor/reader:
For the Church (pause):
for faithfulness to the word of God,
for endurance and encouragement.
We pray to the Lord.

For all nations (pause):
for the end to harm and ruin,
for hope and harmony with one another.
We pray to the Lord.

For all in need of comfort (pause):
for those oppressed by war,
for those stigmatized by disease,
for those homeless in the cold.
We pray to the Lord.

For enemies and rivals (pause):
for those being judged for their crimes;
for those killed because of hatred;
for wisdom and peace to cover the earth.
We pray to the Lord.

For those who wait in hope (pause):
for pregnant women and the forgotten elderly;
for prisoners and the dying;
for all the dead who with hope for the resurrection.
We pray to the Lord.

Presider:
To you, O Lord, we lift up our souls.
Answer us, come to us, be with us.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.