In the early 1970's, when I was studying for the priesthood in Yonkers, there was a late summer evening when I was traveling toward Manhattan in my yellow VW. The traffic had slowed to pay a toll to enter the tunnel. Out my left window I saw this amazing and mesmerizing thing (a kind of vision really). I couldn't take my eyes off of it and felt the importance of witnessing it - that I might never see something this beautiful again.
Then on September 11, 2001, watching the towers come down, I remembered that moment and realized that as the buildings crumbled, there were fire, police and rescuers rushing UP to help. A few days later I learned that a young friend's dear husband and much-loved mother were both lost.
Where people do terrible things that cause destruction and death, there are others who help. We might pray for them today.
We might pray for people in leadership positions and ask for them to hold all the world and its welfare in their efforts and not just the concerns of their own nation.
Wherever there are terrorist acts, children suffer: in marketplaces, schools, streets, at recreation, in their homes. We might hold the world's children in our thoughts today.
Terrorism takes us to the cemetery. We might pray for people in mourning today - especially those who bury family members.
Religion is about personal change or it's about nothing. We might pray today for those who foment terrorist acts in the name of God, for the healing of their sin and their conversion to love.
While the United States mourns the sadness of the day's events in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, we have to remember that this kind of loss is everyday in other places.
There is a weeping icon of the Mother of God (Kardiotissa ~ Of The Heart) in Taylor, Pennsylvania. The tears are not watery tears of emotion but myrrh-tears - oil tears that are more like healing medicine. The world needs those tears.
We might pray for people in leadership positions and ask for them to hold all the world and its welfare in their efforts and not just the concerns of their own nation.
Wherever there are terrorist acts, children suffer: in marketplaces, schools, streets, at recreation, in their homes. We might hold the world's children in our thoughts today.
Terrorism takes us to the cemetery. We might pray for people in mourning today - especially those who bury family members.
Religion is about personal change or it's about nothing. We might pray today for those who foment terrorist acts in the name of God, for the healing of their sin and their conversion to love.
While the United States mourns the sadness of the day's events in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, we have to remember that this kind of loss is everyday in other places.
There is a weeping icon of the Mother of God (Kardiotissa ~ Of The Heart) in Taylor, Pennsylvania. The tears are not watery tears of emotion but myrrh-tears - oil tears that are more like healing medicine. The world needs those tears.
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| Mother of God Kardiotissa ~ of the Heart |
