Words of Light and Hope from Sue Page, LLM

Remembrance Sunday

Prayer
On this Remembrance Sunday, let us bring before the
God of peace our prayers for the world, the church and all His people.
Merciful God, we pray for peace in our hearts and homes,
In our nations and our world,
The peace which is your will,
The peace which we so badly need. Guide us, Loving
Lord, and teach us how to live and guide others into lives of Peace!

(Consider the following words for a time and keep silence imagining the situation)

The pain as we become aware of ‘Others’ suffering

“To be on the receiving end of brutality seemed to me less painful than to sit in darkness and listen to it happening to another.”

Hostage in the Lebanon Brian Keenan

Preparing to Pray

Flee for a while from your tasks, hide yourself for a little space from the turmoil of your thoughts.

Come, cast aside your burdensome cares, and put aside your laborious pursuits.

For a little while give your time to God, and rest in Him for a little while.

Enter into the inner chamber of your mind, shut out all things save God and whatever may aid you in seeking God; and having barred the door of your chamber, seek Him.
St Anselm [1033-11.00]

“We have never preached violence, except the violence of love, which left Christ nailed to a cross, the violence that we must each do to ourselves to overcome our selfishness and such cruel inequalities among us. The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred. It is the violence of love, of brotherhood, the violence that wills to beat weapons into sickles for work.”

Oscar A. Romero, The Violence of Love

Mysterious God
Whose silence speaks
louder than words
and whose darkness
guides us more surely
than our light,
May we trust you in cloud
And in sunlight,
In the interplay of word
And Silence,
Until we know as we are
Fully known. Amen