Collect: Compassionate God, we thank you for your steadfast love and compassion, which you have manifested throughout history, creating humankind to be a source of encouragement to one another and appointing leaders to guide Your people in paths of love, peace, and harmony, grant us the grace through your Holy Spirit to bear one another’s burdens, just as Christ bore our burdens on the cross and showed compassion to the paralyzed man, that we, like David who showed kindness to Mephibosheth and as those restored by Your healing hand, may be gentle in edifying others, loving in supporting them, and faithful in sharing their burdens, so that together we may build Your kingdom of love and peace on earth, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit one God, world without end. Amen.