Prayer at the Start of the Kingdom

Father, you sent your Son into Galilee with news that the time had come and that your kingdom had come near. We confess that we often live as though it were still far off, as though your reign were a matter for some other day. Forgive us for the small kingdoms we build and defend.

Give us the grace to repent, not with a passing pang of guilt but with a real turning of our lives toward you. Give us the faith to believe the good news, to rest our weight on what you have said rather than on what we can see. Where our hearts are hard, soften them. Where our attention is scattered, gather it.

We pray for those who have never heard this announcement, and for those who heard it long ago and let it fade. Bring it near to them again. Bring it near to us. Let the same Spirit who rested on Jesus at the Jordan rest on us, and let your word over him become, by your mercy, your word over us. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.