Five Prayers for Open Hands – The Ascension of the Lord –  Year A: Prayer of the Faithful

Quick Reference

Date: Sunday, 17 May 2026
The Ascension of the Lord –  Year A

Response:
Reader: We lift our hands to you, Lord.
ALL: Lord, hear our prayer.

Introduction

We have been sent. Not when we are ready, not when we are certain –  but now, with these resources, into this week. We bring before God what we carry, and what we hope for.

Intentions

For the leaders of the Church –  that they would hold together without choosing between them the Church of the carpenter’s hands and the Church of the altar –  the sacred and the ordinary meeting in the same place, serving the same people, without apology for either.

We lift our hands to you, Lord.
Lord, hear our prayer.

For our faith community –  that we would have the freedom to wander and the willingness to return –  and that our hands would stay busy with the work of the Gospel, finding the significance of ordinary moments: the meal prepared, the door opened, the message answered, the presence offered.

We lift our hands to you, Lord.
Lord, hear our prayer.

For the wisdom to know the difference –  between the call to serve and the restlessness that keeps us moving because stillness is too difficult. Give us, Lord, the courage to put our hands down sometimes –  to sit, to be held, to receive –  and to trust that this too is the work.

We lift our hands to you, Lord.
Lord, hear our prayer.

For the spirit of wisdom and perception –  that Paul prays for in his letter to the Ephesians: that the eyes of our hearts would be opened to see what is already here. The holiness of the goodbye kiss at the door. The grace in the bread brought to the table. The sacred in the hand that reaches for another in the dark. May we stop waiting for the extraordinary and recognise what our ordinary hands have been touching all along.

We lift our hands to you, Lord.
Lord, hear our prayer.

For ourselves, in this coming week –  that the hour we have spent together would not stay here. That something of what moved in us today would travel home in our bodies, in our hands –  and show up, quietly, in the patience we did not know we had, the smile we chose to offer, the moment we stayed present when we could have been somewhere else entirely.

We lift our hands to you, Lord.
Lord, hear our prayer.

Closing Collect

Lord, you did not leave your disciples with certainty. You left them with a commission, a promise, and each other. We ask for nothing more –  and nothing less. Send us from this place with open hands and the willingness to use them. Amen.

More Resources

The Feast That Looks Away From Itself An exploration of the history Ascenscion’s celebration and the meaning of the Great Commission

Why the Angels Said Move Along A close reading of all four readings for this Sunday.

These Hands, Ordinary and Holy A guided somatic practice inviting into an embodied encounter with their own hands.