Offering prayers for our nation
Todd David Whitmore
The Common Good
When events as stunning as those that transpired on Tuesday occur, one of the first thoughts that arises after the initial shock is, "What can I do?"
One of the things we can do is pray, and Father Malloy had Notre Dame set aside all else that day to have us do just that.
Some situations require multiple kinds of prayer to address their many dimensions. We need, for instance, to offer prayers for the dead. "Into your hands, O Lord, we humbly entrust our brothers and sisters."
We must also pray for the afflicted. A prayer at a hospital reads, "O God, make this door wide enough to receive all who need human love and fellowship and care and narrow enough to shut out all envy, pride and hate."
For the families who are waiting to find out the fate of loved ones: "Father and Creator, in whom all life and death find meaning, remove all anxiety from their minds and strengthen their love so that they may have peace in their hearts and home."
Although we may be at a greater distance from the tragedy than others we may also feel affliction. A prayer from Lamentations reads, "My soul is deprived of peace. But I will call this to mind as my reason to have hope: the favors of the Lord are not exhausted, his mercies are not spent; they are renewed each morning, so great is his faithfulness."
We may also wish to offer prayers for protection, such as Psalms 121 ("The Lord will guard you from all evil") and 91 ("With his pinions he will cover you, and under his wings you shall take refuge").
We may even offer prayers seeking justice. A full reading of the available prayers is necessary to keep justice from becoming revenge.
There are two other kinds of prayers that help in this regard. The first is a plea that right action, action in accord with God's will, be done.
The Our Father says, "Thy will be done," and "Lead us not into temptation."
Thomas Aquinas prayed, "O Creator past all telling ... be pleased to shed on the darkness of mind in which I was born the twofold beam of your light and warmth to dispel my ignorance and sin. Make me delicate to interpret and ready to speak. Guide my going in and going forward."
Even with the call for wisdom, it is easy to abuse prayers for purposes of a vengeance that would distort any efforts at justice. Therefore, religious traditions often offer another kind of prayer, one that sets the horizon for all of our activities. It is perhaps the most difficult kind of prayer, both psychologically and spiritually, particularly at moments like the present: the prayer of forgiveness and reconciliation.
This kind of prayer does not obviate justice, but it may alter its meaning and the acts that we undertake on justice' s behalf even well before forgiveness and reconciliation is humanly possible.
Again we can look to the Our Father, where Jesus adds, "as we forgive those who trespass against us." We can also go to his words on the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." The martyr Stephen follows Christ' s example: "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."
A more contemporary expression of this sentiment is found in a prayer written by an unknown prisoner in the Ravensbruck concentration camp —someone, in other words, who did not come to articulate the prayer through "cheap grace."
"O Lord, remember not only the men and women of good will, but also those of ill will. But do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted on us; remember the fruits we have brought, thanks to this suffering — our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of all this, and when they come to judgment let all the fruits which we have borne be their forgiveness."
It is important to see what this prayer is and is not saying. It is not saying that the actions of "those of ill will" are justifiable.
It is not saying that something like Nuremburg ought not to take place. It also recognizes that such forgiveness is humanly difficult and often impossible in this lifetime; it calls upon God to forgive and on the last day.
The Jesus of the Gospel did not tell us to not have enemies, but to love our enemies.
Perhaps what that means in the present situation is that we ought not forget the possibility of forgiveness and reconciliation even when that possibility appears to us to be absurd and to let that absurd possibility inform those actions we take on behalf of justice.
Todd David Whitmore is an associate professor of theology and the director of the program in Catholic social tradition. His column appears every other Thursday. He can be reached at whitmore.1@nd.edu.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Thursday, September 13, 2001
