Memorial Day Invocation

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Father in heaven, we gather this day in remembrance of those brave men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice, laying down their lives in death, in order to protect and to secure the freedoms we enjoy in this great nation. Today we remember that freedom is not free, but that it has been bought with a costly and precious price. Help us, we pray to remember this truth every day of our lives that we may treasure and value freedom and seek and act to secure it for others as for ourselves.

In Your immeasurable love for the world, you have revealed that the greatest love possible is for a man to lay down his life for his friends, his brothers, and his neighbors. Such love was the motivation for the sacrifice of those we remember this day: Love of liberty and love of country, but even more the love of mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, daughters and sons, and the love of countrymen known and unknown, of all colors, classes, and creeds, both the aged and the unborn. Love is sacrifice, for love always gives and love always thinks more of another than oneself.

Father, we thank you for your love and for their love. We thank you for each one of them and for their sacrifice. We thank you for the freedoms you have procured for us through them. And we thank you for blessing us in this great nation with your providence even as we pray that you would make us a rich blessing to others.

Comfort this day and every day those families who mourn the deaths of those who have died for us. Move us to respect, revere, honor, remember, and thank them for their sacrifice. May we never take them for granted, but enjoy and share and guard the liberties that they fought and died to protect.

Help us, we pray, to honor those who have sacrificed their lives for us to also sacrifice ourselves for others, especially in words and deeds of mercy, compassion, and love so that the naked are clothed, the hungry are fed, the homeless find shelter, the sick are provided treatment, and life at every moment is valued and protected. Make us to be your words of comfort, your hands of service, and your heart of mercy.

In the + Name of your love poured out on us all, Jesus. Amen.