Dear Friends,
You will recall that last week I spend three days fasting and prayer for our country. I ended my prayers at Freedom Park at a service for Reconciliation Day and prayer.
During my prayers and fasting, God in Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, kept on giving me the refrain to also pray for Me Graça Machel and Tata Madiba. Would you kindly intensify your prayer for him at this time, and in your parishes and all places of worship tomorrow and this Christmas ask your followers to spend a significant amount of time praying for him please. Because I am making this call today, I will also make it via the public media to reach as many of you as are possible in a short space of time.
This is the prayer I composed for him and Me Graça. You may want to use your own as may be relevant in an ecumenical or interreligious context or no faith, but spare a moment please.
At Advent we sing and pray, O come, O come Emmanuel.
We ask now, for Emmanuel, God with us, to be with Madiba and Me Graça
Come Emmanuel and release our Madiba from the scourge of ill health;
Come Emmanuel and offer Madiba everlasting healing;
You are a God who knows vulnerability, weakness and frailty,
You are Lord of Lords, King of Kings, Lord of life and death,
Your power sustains us in life and death.
May your arms of love, stretched wide on the cross for us,
Now enfold Madiba, and Graça, with compassion, comfort and
the conviction that you will never forsake them but that
you will grant Madiba eternal healing and relief from pain and suffering.
And may your blessing rest upon Madiba now and always. Amen.
Yours in the service of our Lord and Saviour
Archbishop Thabo Makgoba.
