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O
God, come to our assistance; O Lord, make haste to help us.
The day awoke with blue skies bright in a September sun, plus morning
coffee and, of course, business as usual. Then, suddenly, billowing dark
clouds of fire and smoke swallowed up the sun, plunging the world into
blinding darkness, as towering tidal waves of terror carne crashing over
us.
Thousands were crucified by crashing concrete and steel on that fiery
Good Tuesday, each innocent of crime – as were you, O Christ, on your
terror-filled Good Friday. The wounded, those deeply lacerated in heart
and spirit, tally in the thousands of millions around the globe, now
united in sickening shock and moral outrage, their eyes forever
stigmatized with scenes of horror. As heroic helpers hurriedly climbed
into that smoking hell to rescue the countless trapped and wounded, your
voice swirled up out of the fire and smoke:
“There is no greater love than to lay down
one’s life for one’s friends - especially one’s unknown friends, one’s
anonymous brothers and sisters.” Grant, O Jesus, to the grieving
families and friends of loved ones lost, the fullness of the blessing of
compassion you promised:
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they
shall be comforted.” Amidst flashing red lights and wailing sirens, we
struggle to seal our ears to the echo of your agonizing cry from high on
your cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Now,
as battle bugles trumpet us to a Crusade, a Holy War, raise God’s Shofar
to your lips, O Christ, and call us again:
“No war, not even a Holy War! No
Crusade of hate!
Love your enemies. Bless those who injure you.
Forgive those who terrorize you.”
O God, come to our assistance, forgive us
our personal sins, as well as our communal sins, as we forgive those who
sin against us.
O Lord, make haste to help us, and gift us with the grace of a divine
courage to love our enemies. The brutal murder of the innocents screams
out for justice, and so with a burning primitive lust our hands itch to
become angry instruments of reprisal and retribution.
O God, make haste to help us, come quickly and wash not our feet but our
itching hands from their prehistoric craving for revenge. Touch with
your healing fingers our long-deaf ears so we can once again hear your
commands:
“Do not judge and you will not be
judged.
Do not condemn and you will not be condemned!”
“My disciples, I understand your thirst
for justice, your hunger that those who died did not die in vain, your
craving that all who are guilty be held responsible. Yet, you who are my
disciples have given me a holy name; you call me, ‘The Judge of the
Living and the Dead.’ So place your urgent need for justice in my
pierced hands, and God will fairly balance the scales of Divine
Justice.”
O Lord, make haste and relieve our
helplessness, and show us how to respond to those vicious attacks. “My
friends, be clever as serpents, and innocent as doves. Ask the
Ever-Creative Spirit of God to inspire you to abandon the ancient
weapons of war, proven to be impotent, and to find astonishingly new
ways to defend yourselves from those who terrorize you and seek your
destruction. Trust that God aches for your creative non-violent
solutions.”
O Holy and Good Tuesday, deep as the Grand
Canyon is your pain and profound is our powerlessness and vulnerability.
A mighty Mississippi of our agonizing tears of loss flows broadly across
the land from shore to shore. Like an early morning fog, now forever
vaporized is our once carefree, innocent sense of security.
O Lord, come to our assistance, make haste
to help us.
O Lord, our Risen Christ, come and visit
our disasters, placing a fresh Easter lily of hope and victory high upon
the peak of that Calvary mountain of twisted steel and smothering
crumbled ruins that entombs thousands, and so encourage all of your
disciples of peace and pardon, whose Christian creed is forever the same
one as yours:
Life is stronger than death,
and love is stronger than hate.
· Fr. Edward Hays
September 21, 2001 |
