The events of the last several weeks have scorched our hearts, inflamed by the escalating tensions, protests, and trauma in Minneapolis and across our state. I had contemplated a different theme for this blog, but the hopelessness in the eyes of a friend turned my heart to consider… How do we pray and respond in times like ours? The psalms prayed daily at the Monastery and the wisdom of Pope Francis provided inspiration and direction.
I find myself paying closer attention to the psalms of lament, calls for justice, calls to God to answer. These prayers of the Israelites were created as they experienced exile and deportation at the hands of the Babylonians. I can imagine their pain as they witnessed the forceful separation of families, the violence of forced labor, the loss of security as they were removed from the place they called home. Their pleas to God to see what is happening and to do something are direct and passionate. They are prayers that resonate well with our present situation.
See. “Why Lord, do you stand at a distance and pay no heed to these troubled times? Arrogant scoundrels pursue the poor; they trap them by their cunning schemes. The wicked even boast of their greed.” (Psalm 10:1-3a)
“Their deeds are loathsome and corrupt; not one does what is right. … Will these evildoers never learn? They devour my people as they devour bread; they do not call upon the Lord.” (Psalm 14 :1,4)
Answer. “How long, Lord? Will you utterly forget me? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I carry sorrow in my soul, grief in my heart day after day?” (Psalm 13:2-3)
“I call upon you; answer me, O God. Turn your ear to me; hear my prayer. Show your wonderful love, you who deliver with your right arm those who seek refuge from their foes… hide me in the shadow of your wings from the violence of the wicked.” (Psalm 17: 6-9)
Call for Justice. “Hear O Lord, my pleas for justice; pay heed to my cry; Listen to my prayer spoken without guile. Rise O Lord, confront and cast them down. Rescue [us] from the wicked.” (Psalm 17: 1,13)
“How long will you judge unjustly and favor the cause of the wicked? Defend the lowly and fatherless; render justice to the afflicted and needy. Rescue the lowly and poor; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” (Psalm 82: 2-4)
Lament is good we see, and prayer is powerful… but we need to realize in these prayers that it is we, who bear Christ within, who need to see, choose our stance, and act. We are faced with a crisis in Minnesota, when according to the old adage, we need to “pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on us.” Or better yet, as Jim Manney writes, “pray as if everything depended on us and work knowing everything depends on God.”
Pope Francis describes that work in three steps… each supported by prayer. The steps are to see, to choose, and then to act. He puts it this way…. Go to the margins to let yourself be touched by what you see. Act in a Samaritan way, allowing yourself to be struck by what you see, knowing that suffering will change you… and “Embracing the cross, confident that what will come is new life, gives us courage to stop lamenting and move out and serve others and so enable change, which will come only from compassion and service” (p. 3-4).
Francis says… most importantly, “Between the first step, which is to come close and allow yourself to be struck by what you see and the third step, which is to act concretely to heal and repair, there is an essential intermediate stage: to discern, and to choose. The time of trial is always a time of distinguishing the paths of the good that lead to the future from other paths that lead nowhere or backward. With clarity, we can better choose the first” (p. 51).
The psalmist prays… “Make known to me your ways, Lord; teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me…” (Psalm 25: 4-5). Francis advises that Spirit led discernment is characterized by pursuit of the truth, a recognition that the good spirit leads us to focus on the present, not to a focus on fear or the sadness of the past, but in community to focus on the present “helping us to move ahead in the here and now.” “What comes from God asks: What is good for me, what is good for us?” “The good spirit appeals to my desire to do good, to help and serve; and gives me strength to go forward on the right path” (p. 61-62). That’s the way God works.
And so I pray…
God of hope and God of justice, you hear our prayers, lead us on the path to truth and justice, to discerning ways that lead us to see, to choose, and to act as your good Spirit guides us. We ask in your Holy Name. Amen.
References
Psalm translation from the New American Bible
Manney, Jim. Work as if Everything Depends on God, https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/work-as-if-everything-depends-on-god/
Pope Francis. (2020). Let us Dream: The path to a better future, Simon & Schuster, New York.
