Intercessions ~ First Sunday of Advent

Dark-Eyed Junco

As the new month of December begins/ we pray for those who celebrate birthdays,/ anniversaries and other days of remembrance./ We ask the blessings of good health,/ safety and peace./ We pray to the Lord.

That we would be gracious and of good heart these December weeks of deep darkness./ We ask for world leaders who are decent,/ genuine and humble./ We pray to the Lord.

We pray for those who will receive no gift at Christmas./ For those who lack warmth,/ food or friendship./ We pray as well for the Jewish people who will soon celebrate their own feast of light at Hanukkah./ We pray to the Lord.

Thursday is Pearl Harbor Day./ We pray for peaceful days/ and for the boldness to imagine a world without un-ending wars./ We pray to the Lord.

Friday is the Feast of Mary's Conception./ We pray for the pre-born child in the womb,/ asking for every child to be welcomed and loved./ For the children of the world who know only misery and fear./ We pray to the Lord.

In the Advent time we pray for the sick,/ the poor and the elderly./ We remember our friends and family members,/ mindful of those who are struggling in any way./ That we would come to Christmas with less stress;/ without resentful or rancorous hearts./ We pray to the Lord.

Contemporary Violence

Here is a sculpted scene that might get the attention of people today, maybe especially these Black Friday through Cyber Monday shopper-days. Notice that this frenzied couple don't have even one foot firmly planted on the ground. Notice that the shopping cart is filled to overflowing, so much so that it takes two to move it. Maybe it's more the Shopping Cart of Life. 

The children are panicked and stressed. Dad is anguished as he points ahead to the more. Perhaps he is calling to his wife, "I want my children to have everything I never had." The boy holding onto his mother's leg seems to be craving her attention. Do you sense the mom would prefer to be freed of these children who are slowing her down? The man is so crazed and inattentive he might crush the two real birds that are right in front of him.  The stone is gray: a colorless scene, a window into the violence of the First World.

Thomas Merton wrote in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander: 

"There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs; activism and overwork. The rush and the pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful."

Truth be told, Merton likely wrote this from his own personal experience. While he was a Trappist monk and hermit, he received many guests into his hermitage, traveled to Alaska and the Far East for conferences and was in constant communication with scholars, theologians, activists, poets and religious personalities. This doesn't mean he was a hypocrite in writing what he wrote, but perhaps he understood better than most. No one is immune to this contemporary violence.  Even a monk can fall prey.

Psalm 66 ~ God's All-Inclusive Embrace

Psalm 66 is a harvest time song-prayer. But we'll see that the psalmist has more on his mind than just the gathering in of wheat and barley. 

Verse 1: May God be merciful to us. God's mercy is right up front in the psalmist's mind. It is God's kindness. And in the next line we're told in a poetic way what God's mercy-kindness means: that God would be close to us, so close we can stand in the light of God's face. 

Verse 2: The psalmist asks that God's saving health would be shared over the whole world - all the nations - and not only among his own people. No strident populist nationalism here! We could memorize this verse and pray it often throughout the day, as an antidote to the voices of the haters and division makers on the loose. 

Verse 3: When we've got a good idea, we tend to repeat it. Here the psalmist invites everyone to the praise of God: not just the Catholics, not just the Americans and the white people, not just the straight, right-partied, law-abiding, wealthy, credentialed, famous people - but all the peoples. That's called inclusion.

Verses 4 and 5: God judges with equity. Maybe the Jewish People - the chosen  people - have as their mission to be a kind of symbol or microcosmic sign of what God feels for all people. It is as if God has put them under a spotlight, not because God has in mind something for them that God doesn't have for all, but quite the opposite. The spotlight would seem to say, "Look here, this is how I feel about you too."

Verse 6: The earth has brought forth her increase. The earth is soil and water, which we all have in common. No human person or nation stands on a cloud. And what blessings might the psalmist be asking for? Maybe we've been given the answer back in verse 4: that we would be glad and sing for joy. Don't we need that? Not the idiotic kind of "joy" promised by the products sold on TV, but God's own gladness and joy.

Of course, we must be mindful of those places on earth where there is famine and the horrors that leave people suffering want - where the earth brings forth NO increase. We might begin by dispelling from among us any spirit of greed, hoarding, gluttony and waste.

Verse 7: May the ends of the earth stand in awe of God. Sometimes a nation or a religion can get so turned in on itself, its divisions, bickering and shallow distractions, it loses its true spiritual sense of the things that matter most - like taking care of people. Imagine if a nation which calls itself God-fearing, or a religion which thinks itself to be God-Loving, found itself utterly speechless by the all-embracing kindness of God who has gone to such trouble to be with us. Awe: to have our breath taken away!