QUICK REFERENCE
Date: February 22, 2026
Liturgical Season: First Sunday of Lent, Year A
Readings: Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7 | Psalm 51 | Romans 5:12-19 | Matthew 4:1-11
Response: Lord, hear us. All: Lord, graciously hear us.
Celebrant Introduction
Today we heard how God breathed life into dust — and how the dust learned to hide. As we begin this Lenten journey, let us bring before God the places in our world and in our hearts where people still hide — not because they want to, but because they’ve forgotten it’s safe to come out. Let us pray with honesty, knowing that the One who asks “Where are you?” already knows the answer, and comes looking anyway.
Intercessions
For the Church: That during this season of Lent, our communities may become places where honesty is possible — where confession is met with tenderness, where doubt is not silenced, and where no one has to perform their faith to be welcome at the table. We pray: Lord, hear us…
For those who lead and govern: For leaders at every level — in nations, institutions, and communities — who hide behind image, rhetoric, and polling numbers: that they may find the courage to speak plainly, to admit what they do not know, and to serve the people in front of them rather than the audience they imagine. We pray: Lord, hear us…
For those who hide in loneliness: For the ones who close the door each evening and disappear — the elderly no one visits, the young who live their most honest hours in the blue light of a screen, the grieving whose pain has outlasted everyone’s patience. That someone may notice their absence and come looking. We pray: Lord, hear us…
For those who hide in performance: For the ones who cannot stop — the caregivers who never ask for care, the providers who measure their worth by their output, the parents who have forgotten what they need because they are so busy meeting everyone else’s needs. That this Lent may give them permission to set something down. We pray: Lord, hear us…
For those who were shamed into hiding: For every person whose truth was met with punishment — those who were told their feelings were too much, their questions too dangerous, their bodies too visible, their love too wrong. For those who learned that the only safe thing to do was disappear. That the breath of God may reach them even in the smallest, most sealed-off room of their hearts. We pray: Lord, hear us…
For our families and those closest to us: That in our homes we may begin to practise the small, terrifying honesty of saying what is true — not perfectly, not all at once, but one fig leaf at a time. That we may stop ascending as two and descending as strangers. We pray: Lord, hear us…
For those who have died: For all who died carrying secrets they never found a safe place to speak — especially those who died in shame, in isolation, or believing they were too far gone to be found. That they may now stand, unhidden, in the fullness of God’s mercy, where nothing needs to be deleted and nothing needs to be explained. We pray: Lord, hear us…
Celebrant Conclusion
God of the garden and the desert, you breathed us into life and you have never stopped searching for us in the places where we hide. Gather these prayers — the ones we’ve spoken aloud and the ones we cannot yet say — and hold them with the same tenderness with which you clothed our first parents when their own covering was not enough. Through Christ our Lord, who stood in the open when every voice told him to hide. Amen.
PRACTICAL NOTES
Tone: These intercessions are longer than standard — they paint a picture before they pray. The reader needs to trust the rhythm and not rush. Each petition is a small act of recognition: we see you. That seeing is itself a prayer.
Adaptability: Parishes may shorten by selecting 4–5 petitions that best fit their community. The intercessions for loneliness, performance, and shame are the most universal and can stand in any context. The digital reference is light enough (“blue light of a screen”) to resonate without alienating anyone.
Seasonal continuity: If your parish is following a Lenten theme of hiding and unhiding, these intercessions can be adapted across the season — each week surfacing a different dimension of where and how we hide.
More resources for This Sunday, including Liturgical overview of the theme, The Story Beneath the Story: a reading-by-reading exploration of the Scripture, Called Back to Be Seen: Prayer of the Faithful. All resources are free to use.
