Oracion..

Today is the Feast of the Assumption of Mary and I chose to go to the Spanish Mass.Not a word was understood but I love the music.Who can resist bongos and tambourines ?The children, beautiful with dark eyes and braids.The humble priest from Chile.Usually, I will understand at least a few words of the sermon but not today.All I carried out the door was oracion.Yes.

The world is on fire, let us pray.

For the people in Iraq, hanging by a thread on a mountain.Their crime, not being Muslim.For the wisdom to know how to help and the stomach for it.

For the Church.In these times of persecution of all kinds directed at Christians, who has the courage to stand?Do I ?

For the hopeless.I have never, in the darkest times, been without hope that a favorable outcome is guaranteed.This small light came to me from my mother and the church.And nature.May the despairing see that they are not their flagging bank statement,or tenuous career.They are who they are before God, nothing more.Think of that deeply and see the truth of it.

For the trapped.The powerless.

For those who are tentatively trying to envision God in their lives.The seed that has been planted by a book, a hymn, a word or a holy action.May they put cynicism aside, resist putting walls back in place and jump into the Arms.Those arms open, waiting all their lives for a softening, a chink in the wall.Think of the word open and then the word close.Sit with those words and let them speak to you.How about sprouting seed. Hope.And light.

Praise that You promised to never abandon us.That in the efforts of the Marines in Iraq helping strangers, I see You.I feel You in  the quiet of church before Mass as the sunlight comes through the stained glass Stations of the Cross. Through chant, turkeys, bells and a plot of brilliant marigolds.Despite how dreadful things in the world look, the Light will never be extinguished. Oracion.