A Cruciform Prayer for Justice and Peace

Christ of the margins,

you know.

You know the weight of betrayal,

the sting of injustice,

the silence of God.

You are found—

not in palaces or platforms,

but among the disappeared and disfigured,

the evicted and the exiled,

the bruised, the brutalised, the barely holding on.

You are present—

in Gaza’s rubble,

beneath the boots of occupation,

in refugee camps and prison cells,

in the hunger lines and the hidden graves.

Not hanging again—

but standing in fierce, wounded solidarity.

God with the crucified.

God with the forgotten.

We name the ache:

genocide unchallenged,

empires unrepentant,

churches too comfortable to care.

We name the systems—

greedy, grinding, global—

that trade in lives and call it progress.

And we name the hope, small but stubborn:

That the tomb is not the end.

That love remembers what power forgets.

That wounds can become witness.

So come, Risen One—

not clean and triumphant,

but scarred and real.

Break into the locked rooms of our fear.

Walk with us on the road that feels like failure.

Kindle again the fire of protest, prayer, and presence.

Let your Church be salt—sharp and preserving.

Let your Church be light—revealing and refusing.

Let us not seek comfort, but courage.

Not applause, but faithfulness.

Until justice rolls,

until mourning turns to dancing,

until all your children are free.

Amen.

Artwork

'Stations of the Cross' - Steve Prince