Faith and Mission
PeaceWeavers in Our Time
We are your Year 12 Liturgy Leaders, Aleena, Par and Chantel.
Our College 2023 Liturgy Leaders led the College in prayer on Wednesday 1 February. They used the College PA system to invite all students, staff and visitors to join the entire community in prayer. They read out the following to raise awareness and pray for world wide peace.
Today is St Brigid’s Feast Day and to celebrate, we join all Kildare Ministries communities to pause for one minute and pray for peace around the world.
Praying for peace is so apt given our global context. As historian Mary Condren wrote, Brigid was not only a weaver of crosses but also a ‘peace weaver’: Peaceweavers sometimes married into their enemy’s tribe, and their daughters carried gifts to weave peace.
Such women had great negotiating skills and authority. As with such peaceweavers, St Brigid caused mists to appear between opposing sides to prevent bloodshed. With her nuns she accompanied protesting warriors to the battlefield, rendering them unable to fight.
In historical times, the Abbesses of Kildare, who succeeded the historical 5th century Brigit, could pardon criminals encountered on their way to execution. They were revered figures of authority who were known as “Those Who Turned Back the Streams of War” (Irish Times 2011).
As people captured by her spirit, we are challenged to be those ‘peaceweavers’ in our time.
Already the news has started to spread around the world about the pause for peace campaign. From New Zealand to New York, from Brisbane to Barcelona, one minute's silence for peace will take place around the globe, and will form part of the rolling pause for peace movement.
Chantel and Par lead the whole school in pausing for peace, so that we could stand in solidarity with students and staff from all Kildare Ministries Communities and send out a message that we actively oppose warfare and the proliferation of arms, which wreak havoc on human beings as well as on the natural world. The aim of this movement was to awaken and build a spirit of global solidarity in our search for peace. It is consonant with the value of peace which Brigid stood for in her time.
Prayers for Peace
Leader: Brigid, peaceweaver, you brought harmony where there was conflict and light to dark places:
Response: May the light of your peace penetrate the walls of hatred, opposition and discord.
Leader: In 2023 our world is torn by war and division, we remember the peoples of the Ukraine, Russia, Afghanistan, Iran, Sri Lanka, Israel, Sudan Brazil and elsewhere:
Response: Brigid, peaceweaver, change hearts to work for peace - peace with order, justice and liberty.
Leader: We are mindful of the exploitative and fractured relationships between humanity and the planet:
Response: Brigid, Woman of earth and peaceweaver, teach us to heal the precious webs of life and tend to the health of all.
Leader: Brigid you were a voice for the wounded and the weary. Strengthen what is weak within us. Calm us into a quietness that heals and listens:
Response: May the mantle of your peace cover those who are troubled and anxious, and may peace be firmly rooted in our hearts and in our world.
Leader: God of peace, may we become peacemakers by feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, planting kindness and nurturing peace wherever we are and wherever we go.
Bernadette Casey
Assistant to the Principal - Faith and Mission