In the past few days when the headlines were horrific, when the silent voices of lifeless victims were screaming, when those, whose lives have been forever changed, were sobbing, I’ve been silent. Many of my writer/minister friends have had helpful and important things to say that speak Truth and comfort. Others have just expressed their lament, their frustration, their fears, and their hopes. But I’ve been silent, my very soul soggy and heavy, and yet feeling squeezed dry. I didn’t want to be silent — I just had nothing new to say. Then I was reminded of the Prayer of St. Francis, and this prayer speaks for me.
“Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
May it be so with all of us. Amen.
