Pauca Verba is Latin for A Few Words.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

A Prayer in Difficult Times



Save us who are perishing
O Most Holy Virgin,
chasten us not according to our sins,
but as you are merciful in your
love for humankind, have pity,
deliver us from eternal loss,
sickness and necessity
and save us.

Some Christians, by choice, receive only a very little news of what is happening in the world. Some have no knowledge of what's happening at all. They say knowledge of the world's suffering steals their peace. I would say this ignorance is a luxury we cannot afford. 

I cannot imagine Jesus saying: It's best not to know about the seven hundred drowned migrants fleeing Libya for Africa. And best not to know about the raping of the Yazidi twelve year old girls and their grandmothers. You're right, be at peace and maintain your generic prayer - ignorant of the murder of the Ethiopian Christians and the wars being fought to safeguard the mines of precious metals needed for your future computer use.

This kind of ignorance makes for narcissistic religion. If Jesus went to the mountains, it was never for long. He was always with people in their pain. His expanded heart wasn't directed to the beauties of the desert or the wilderness but for the people right in front of him and those he went out of his way to find.

We might print the little Korsun icon of the Mother of God at the top of the post here and the prayer - setting it where we are sure to find it each morning.