You are beauty, Lord, you are humility and patience …
This beautiful prayer from the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor can guide our hearts as we pray for women around the world:
~
We pray to you, Lord, on behalf of women all across the world.
You are sacred, Lord, and you work wondrous things:
We pray to you so that an end will come to the physical and moral violence committed against the bodies, minds, and the spirits of women.
You are clemency, Lord, you are shelter: grant women the strength and the courage to recognize their own slavery and to escape from oppression.
You are beauty, Lord, you are humility and patience: Illuminate the path of rebirth that millions of women are traveling.
You are our hope, Lord, you are faith and compassion: Purify the memory and the minds of women from the persecution they have suffered, from the humiliations and tortures they were forced to undergo.
You are good, Lord, every goodness, the highest goodness: We cannot allow evil and violence against women to continue to be cultivated. Help us to break apart evil with all our energies of love.
Inspire new laws and new political action in favor of the dignity and respect of women in every country on our planet.
Amen!