Archbishop Thabo's lament for South Africa

Archbishop Thabo Makgoba led a prayer vigil on the steps of St George's Cathedral in Cape Town on Wednesday November 2. He ended the silent vigil, held under the theme "A lament for our beloved country”, with this prayer.

Let us pray:

Lord, where are you in these trying and challenging times and amidst these great developments in our country?

Shakespeare said: “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”

Lord, we are living through a time of acute misery, amidst an unprecedented political crisis.

Lord, we know though that South Africa is not broken;

Because notwithstanding this orchestrated attack on the foundations of our country, we remain a constitutional democracy;

Our judicial system remains intact and plays a critical role in protecting these foundations.

We are thankful for this, Lord, and we are determined to work to maintain this.

Today, we gathered in silence at the footsteps of your Cathedral, asking you Lord to speak to us and help us discern your will for us.

While we cannot change the past, we must change the future. As South Africans we must hold ourselves up to a higher standard.

We are your children and the children of giants such as Nelson Mandela.

We long for a just, equal, fair and a moral and values-based state, which we know is possible to achieve in Africa.

Lord, we cannot afford the luxury of corruption, quarrelling and never-ending internal strife. We know there is too much at stake for us to allow that to happen!

We know Lord your that you have destined us to be a great society, an infinitely capable society, a hard-working society, a society which has the right to expect something from life.

We refuse to be a society in which, no matter how hard we work, the fruits of our labour are often corruptly stolen from us.

On this All Souls Day, what we see, what we feel, what we know, is that there is a New Struggle that every group in South Africa is beginning to embrace, a New Struggle to end inequality, a New Struggle to end the inequality of opportunity.

So above all, we express our renewed faith in you, God, in our society and in the outstanding, industrious, hard-working and decent people who call themselves South Africans.

We express our faith that this society will have a bright future, because it is we who will ensure that future, and we commit ourselves to pray and to work for such a future.

Our destiny is not a matter of chance, God, it is a matter of choice, your choice, our choice.

God bless you and God bless South Africa. Amen