A Prayer For Healing of the Gulf of Mexico

Opening: O Great Spirit, Your sacred Gulf water and abundant forms of life sustained by it are now devastated by a massive oil spill that began April 20th. You established with Noah and all generations a new covenant with the earth and every living creature on it to never be destroyed again. Grant us wisdom to understand and mourn this wound to the Gulf today and for subsequent generations to come; we pray for the grace to live by Your covenant with the one creation that is the source of all life.

We pray:

That all oil leaks are closed and sealed and oil flow into the Gulf is stopped.

All: Great Spirit, Help Us find a way to restore beauty to Your Handiwork.

That the oil that has spilled into the Gulf, wetlands, rivers, and land be cleaned up.

All: Great Spirit, Help us to listen anew to creation’s music.

We mourn the loss of people and all forms of life destroyed by the oil spill.

All: Great Spirit, Grant us Wisdom to live in harmony with your creation.

We pray for healing of the entire Gulf region ecosphere, that the smallest and largest forms of life may find healing from the oil and chemicals dumped into the Gulf.

All: Great Spirit, Help us to find ways to refresh Your Gulf, bayous, rivers, and lands.

We mourn the loss of a way of life for all fishing people; may all who find their livelihood through fishing find the comfort and economic support they now need.

All: Great Spirit, Renew in us a humble gratitude for the fragility of the global biosphere.

That our nation and world find new ways to humbly reverence the one Mother earth and all forms of life that are nurtured by it—that we may find renewable forms of energy that sustain all forms of life.

All: Great Spirit, Grant us grace to wonder at the wonder of it all!

Closing: (Psalm 96)

Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice;

let the sea and what fills it resound;

let the plains be joyful and all that is in them;

Then let all the trees of the forest rejoice before the Lord who comes,

who governs the earth

To govern the world with justice and the peoples with faithfulness.

In Wonder of One Mother Earth, We pray, Amen!

Alex Mikulich, Research Fellow, Jesuit Social Research Institute

(Inspired by, and adapted from, the First American “O Great Spirit” Prayer)