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O God, our help in ages past,

We commend to your gracious care and keeping all the men and women of our armed forces at home and abroad. Defend them day by day with your heavenly grace; strengthen them in their trials and temptations; give them courage to face the perils which beset them; and grant them a sense of your abiding presence wherever they may be.

God of Love, stretch us to encompass more and more of You, as we encounter your holy presence in others. We thank you for the variety of sexual orientation and gender expression among us; grant that our differences may serve to broaden our embrace of You and the diversity of Your creation. Teach us to honor one another as unique expressions of your One Love, and to protect the rights of all, especially those most at risk from hatred, discrimination and prejudice.

You have commanded us to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us. Lead them and us from prejudice to truth; deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty and revenge; and in your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before your throne.

We commend to your continual care the homes in which your people dwell. Put far from them, we pray, every root of bitterness, the desire of vainglory, and the pride of life. Fill them with faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness. Turn the hearts of the parents to the children, and the hearts of the children to the parents; and so enkindle fervent charity among us all, that we may evermore be kindly affectioned one to another.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

Adapted from the Book of Common Prayer