大象传媒

Good morning.

I don鈥檛 know how other presenters of this slot go about preparing their Prayers for the Day, but I must confess mine always includes looking up both major events in history as well as news headlines across the years, and what strikes me again and again as I do so is the fact that so many of those headlines are dominated by the dramatic and the disastrous, so much so that you wonder how people survived at the time 鈥� but they did.

When I came to settle in Northern Ireland nearly 40 years ago it was then in the depths of the Troubles.

From the outside it had all appeared quite frightening 鈥� certainly a far cry from Cambridge!

But within the place鈥檚 watchword daubed over and over again on makeshift signs outside bombed buildings everywhere was 鈥淏USINESS AS USUAL鈥�.

Yes, there were some really terrible things that happened 鈥� but things we read about rather than witnessed.

Yes, we were searched going into every shop and held up at night on the roads.

There were places where we could not bring our cars and areas to be avoided except in real necessity.

But despite that the underlying fabric of society survived and continued to provide a lasting foundation for ordinary life, and part of that foundation, I have absolutely no doubt was due to the prayers of ordinary people of all denominations and none, people at home and around the world who realised that whether it is the peace of a little place like this or the survival of our wider world in these uncertain times the persistent prayers of people of goodwill everywhere will always undergird the foundations of our existence and we depend upon them.

Lord, whatever this day may hold,
be with us now
as together we work and pray for the good of all.

Amen.