This prayer was adapted and read for the December 2014 Vienna Conferences, the URI North America "Let's Eliminate Nuclear Weapons" webinar, and was most recently a part of the opening day ceremony of the 59th Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations. In the words of Monica Willard, URI Representative to the United Nations, “The UN is holding the 2015 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) 27 April to 22 May 2015. Prayers are needed for this important deliberation.”
The Beginning and the End are in your hands, O Creator of the Universe. And in our hands you have placed the fate of this planet. We, who are tested by having both creative and destructive power in our free will, turn to you in sober fear and intoxicating hope. We ask for your guidance and to share in your imagination in our deliberations about the use of nuclear force. Help us to lift the fog of atomic darkness that hovers so pervasively over our Earth, Your Earth, so that soon all eyes may see life magnified by your pure light.
Bless all of us who wait today for your Presence and who dedicate ourselves to achieve your intended peace and rightful equilibrium on Earth. In the Name of all that is holy and all that is hoped. Amen.
the Rt. Rev. William E. Swing,
President and Founder
United Religions Initiative (URI)
December 4, 2014
Read Bishop Swing's full speech, given at a UN panel on 'Nuclear Weapons and the Moral Compass' April 2015.
