Prayer in Solidarity...

... with the Vietnamese who died in Essex recently and their Families.

Delegation of Ireland

“Is not this the fast I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the strap of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin”. ( Isaiah 58: 6-7)

Oh God, we didn’t see them, but you did, the 39 Vietnamese who died recently and who join the hundreds of thousands of human beings smuggled and trafficked each year. They are trapped and sometimes die in modern day slavery. They travel under terrible conditions, they work in factories, plough fields, harvest crops, work in quarries, fill brothels, clean homes and haul water. Many are children with tiny fingers for weaving rugs and small shoulders for bearing rifles. Their labour is forced, their bodies beaten, their faces hidden from those who don’t really want to see them. But you see them all, God of the poor, you hear their cry and you answer by opening our eyes, and breaking ourhearts and loosening our tongues to insist: NO MORE.

Silent Prayer Time.

Intercessions

We remember especially the 39 Vietnamese victims of smugglers who died recently in the container in Essex, 31 men and 8 women.   R: Lord may they now experience the fullness of your love.

We remember their families, parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, partners, children. R: Comfort and strengthen them in their unbearable grief.

For all those 30 million men, women and children in our world who are objectified, degraded and exploited for commercial gain. R: Lord strengthen them and let them know that they are not forgotten.

For traffickers, pimps and slave holders who perpetuate this system of indignity and degradation.

R: Open their hearts to recognise their injustice.

For all of us, that we may examine how we collude to perpetuate human slavery, and that we may never turn a blind eye.    R: Move our hearts to use our voices for justice.

For governments everywhere that they may awaken to the fact that living in poverty and inequality is the reason why people become vulnerable to promises of a better life from smugglers and traffickers.  R: May we work together towards a fairer model of development.

Lord, we ask that we may never fall into indifference, that we may open our eyes and look upon the miseries and wounds of so many brothers and sisters deprived of their dignity and freedom, and hear their cry for help. We ask this through Christ our Lord, Amen.