Father, you are an ocean of peace and you grant us this gift through your Son Jesus Christ and the action of the Holy Spirit. You sow it in our hearts through conversion and reconciliation.
You entrust us with peace, making it our responsibility, converting us into builders of peace, so that we build it with “passion, patience, experience and determination”.
You want our families to be schools for peace, where we listen to you, welcome you and follow you better, so that words and gestures of forgiveness germinate, along with listening, dialogue, tenderness, love and reconciliation, so that our children and young people may become protagonists of a peaceful future.
Walk with us as we act upon our responsibilities in our social, political, economic, cultural and church lives. Help us to spread respect for life, people and creation; may we live in solidarity, may we be brotherly and sisterly, and just, and may we work for the common good.
Welcome into your home those who have died in conflicts. Move the hearts of the perpetrators of violence, so that they return to you and may also be committed constructors of peace. Strengthen the dignity of the victims and give them the courage to offer forgiveness.
Mary, Queen of Peace, help us to open our hearts, to live out justice, forgiveness, reconciliation and peace so that a civilisation of love may be born in our world today.
Amen
A prayer from the Bishops’ Conference of Colombia