International Holocaust Remembrance Day Prayer
76 years ago today the concentration camp at Auschwitz was liberated. Every year January 27 people from around the world remember the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis. This commemoration is vital because it reminds us of the dangers of hate and dehumanization.
Prayer from United Church of Christ:
On this, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we lift up in prayer an Earth and a human community still healing from the horror of those years and that abhorrent evil. We do so both as a contribution to the healing touch we all need, and as a way to never forget.
O God of all, who knows not the temptation to value a human being created in your image differently because of race, creed, gender identity, or status, we cry out to you and ask for your healing touch.
We cannot, we will not forget, the evil and horror visited upon the Jewish people during the season of the Holocaust. May we who bear the responsibility to remember never forget what we discovered we are capable of. May we discover in our love for each other the capacity not just to endure this horror but to eradicate it.
On this day, which we set aside to remember, may we find in the telling of our stories to each other a source of inspiration that leads to hope, to healing, and to an acceptance of the beauty inherent in every child your hand fashions and your breath animates.
Let no new fascism take root.
Let no new potentate or their minions threaten annihilation.
Let no new hatred inspire one more holocaust.
Let our memory of this horror be all that is left of this evil.
AMEN
