This prayer was triggered by the violent rise of hate crimes ... such a vast sadness has taken hold of the world ... in contrast to Mary's Sunday, the Second Sunday of Advent, her candle, Joy!
We lament the rise of hate crimes … all around us, hot-tempered voices, misplaced anger … a complete failure of the human spirit.
We pray for those who have given their souls to hatred, lost in a briar patch of twisted thoughts, wandering in a wilderness of pain and violence. LORD, free them from their sins, we pray, and lead, them to green pastures and fresh water, to find and enjoy their true personhood.
We pray for the victims of their hate:
our Jewish sisters and brothers … their safety, their synagogues … their hopes and dreams …
our Muslim sisters and brothers … their well-being, their mosques … their prayers and aspirations …
all people of color, who are regularly met with suspicion in stores and malls across the land …
the Asian-American community, often told, “go back to where you came from.”
the Latino community, often told to “speak English.”
we pray for the children, dear God, children who want to play and laugh like children anywhere … eyes wide with fear, little hearts pounding, tears flowing.
With sorrow all around us, dear God, we set our sights upon Mary, the Mother of our LORD and Savior … her courage, her faith, her vision … her decision to welcome Christ into her womb, to bear the Savior of the World, to give to the world what the world so desperately needs, what the world too often destroys and buries, what the world longs for, even as it turns away.
Help us do as Mary does - to welcome Christ into the womb of our heart, our soul, our being … to welcome Christ, that Christ might be born anew through each one of us … to give ourselves to faith, hope, and love, that we might give Christ to the world.
In the name of our LORD Jesus Christ who taught us to pray, saying:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.
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