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A Prayer for International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Writer's picture: Pelham Road Baptist ChurchPelham Road Baptist Church

by Dr. John Roy


I think often about what it means to love our neighbor. If my actual neighbor was sick, and I knew it, I might bring them a meal or send a card, or refrain from blowing my leaves until 10am to assure they rested well.



But for neighbors who don’t live next door, what can I do? What can we do? Last year I heard an old friend had lost a child to suicide. We live several states apart, so I decided one way to love this neighbor was to remember her. I sent a note, recalling the good times I remember having with her family. Remembering may not seem like a lot of love, but maybe it’s a start.



January 27th is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It is one day a year to remind ourselves and love our Jewish neighbors. Six million Jews died at the hands of the Nazis between 1933-45. It was a dark time for the world, not just the Jews. Most religious groups sat on their hands during this time, voicing little outrage. In an attempt to learn a lesson and not remain quiet, we pause annually to remember the suffering, the pain, and the indifference.



Our prayer for today -


O God of all people. We ask for your healing touch.



We cannot, we will not, forget the evil and horror visited upon our friends and your children, European Jews, during the season of the Holocaust. May we who bear the responsibility to remember and never forget what we discovered we are capable of when we fail to love. Further, 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 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.



“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession” (Deuteronomy 7:6).



God, let no new hatred inspire another Holocaust.



“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[a] 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] There is no commandment greater than these.”



May our memory of this horror be all that is left of this evil. In the name of the Jewish carpenter and the Savior of All, we pray, Amen

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