Canada Day Prayer
May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth! Psalm 72:8
Here is my prayer for this great, imperfect nation:
Lord, we thank you for this land, for this country Canada, which declares your majesty - A mari usque ad mare - from sea to sea to sea.
We pray for this country, Lord. We pray that you would give our leaders your justice, O God, and your righteousness.
Let the Rockies bear prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness! May this country be known for defending the cause of the poor of the people, and for giving deliverance to the children of the needy, and crushing the oppressor!
May this country fear you while the sun endures, and as long as the moon, throughout all generations! May justice be like rain that falls on the Maritimes and Quebec and Ontario and the prairies to the west coast, like showers that water the earth! May the righteous flourish, and peace abound, till the moon be no more!
And may there be abundance of grain in this land; on the tops of the mountains may the heads of grain wave; may our land’s fruit be like the Okanagan’s and the Niagara region’s; and may people blossom in the cities like the wheat of Saskatchewan!
Lord, help us return to your commandments by walking in your ways and by fearing you. For you brought us into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and peach trees and cherries, a land of maple trees and honey, a land in which we eat bread without scarcity, in which we lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills we can dig copper.
We eat and are full, and we ought to bless you Lord for the good land you given us. Yet we have forgotten you Lord our God by not keeping your commandments and your rules and your statutes, when we have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when our herds and flocks multiply and our silver and gold is multiplied and all that we have is multiplied, then our hearts are lifted up, and we forget you Lord, who gave us the breath of life.
Forgive us Lord. Return us to Christ. May his name endure forever, his fame continue as long as the sun! May people be blessed in him, all nations call him blessed!
We are grateful beyond measure for your son Jesus Christ. May he be known in Canada. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. May Christ have dominion from sea to sea, and from the St. Lawrence River to the ends of the earth! May this be our continual prayer.
Blessed be the glorious name of Jesus forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory! It is in his precious name we pray now.
Amen