Words Twice a Week 10.12
Here’s a nice prayer for this week -
Wake me up Lord, so that the evil of racism
finds no home within me.
Keep watch over my heart Lord,
and remove from me any barriers to your grace,
that may oppress and offend my brothers and sisters.
Fill my spirit Lord, so that I may give services of justice and peace.
Clear my mind Lord, and use it for your glory.
And finally, remind us Lord that you said,
"blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God." Amen.
This prayer is from For The Love of One Another (1989), a special message from the Bishops' Committee on Black Catholics of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops on the Occasion of the Tenth Anniversary of the Pastoral Letter, Brothers and Sisters to Us, the U.S. Catholic Bishops' Pastoral Letter on Racism (1979). https://www.usccb.org/resources/prayer-service-racial-healing-our-land.
Now, a few notes from the church calendar -
Oct 15 Teresa of Avila “a delightful, confident, good-natured, lively, competent Carmelite reformer.” (Jones) A mystic and an activist, she was forced to defend her writings, including The Interior Castle and The Way of Perfection, before the Inquisition. Tradition links her with the Infant Jesus of Prague statue. We saw it – and all the different clothes for it when we were there a couple of years ago. She was one of the first women to be a Doctor of the Church. She wrote
Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing make you afraid.
All things are passing.
God alone never changes.
Patience gains all things.
If you have God you will want for nothing.
God alone suffices.
Oct 17 Ignatius of Antioch One of the three most significant of the “Apostolic Fathers”. On the way to Rome where he was martyred, he wrote a series of letters.
Oct 18 Saint Luke, Evangelist Scholars credit him with writing the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. Tradition says he was a physician. While he never speaks of himself as an eyewitness to Jesus’ ministry, there are three sections of Acts where he uses ‘we’, suggesting he was there. Tradition says he was also the first icon painter – painting the Virgin Mary and Child, the Black Madonna of Częstochowa, and Our Lady of Vladimir.
And from the world/earth calendar -
Oct 12
- Robert E Lee died on this day in 1870.
- John Denver died in 1997. Take me home, country roads….
- In 1492, after sailing the ocean blue, Columbus set foot on the Bahamas, setting off a troubling thread in our history. W Paul Jones notes that in reality, it was the “Indians” who discovered Columbus. Forced removals, residential schools, the Trail of Tears are all sad and shameful chapters of the story that followed. Yes, we note that here in Marquette we lived on the Anishinabe homeland. We are grateful for the way they cared for it and lived in it for some many years, and wish that we were doing as well for it as they did.
Oct 13
- Paul Simon was born in 1941. Have a favorite song? – Bridge Over Troubled Water, Sound of Silence, The Boxer, or something more recent?
Oct 14
- Speaking of bears, Winnie the Pooh made his debut in 1926. I wonder, coincidence or planned, that Paddington appeared from “darkest Peru” almost the same day? Anyway – 'let’s look after all these bears”!
- in 1947, Chuck Yeager was the first person to break the sound barrier; in 1984 Joseph Kittinger started on his 4 day solo gas balloon flight across the Atlantic.
Oct 15
- 202 years earlier, in 1782, Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier spent about 4 minutes in the air in a balloon made by the Montgolfier brothers.
- I Love Lucy first aired in 1951. Chocolate, anyone?
Oct 16
- in 1986 Reinhold Messner, an Italian mountaineer, climbed Lhotse in Nepal, becoming the first person to climb all 14 8,000 meter peaks.
- John Brown was hanged in 1859 after leading a revolt at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia.
- the Million Man March happened in 1995.
Oct 17
-in 1814, the vats burst at the Meux and Company Brewery in London, sending a 15 foot wave of beer through the streets that killed 8 people.
- in 1989, an earthquake hit the San Francisco area 20 minutes before the start of game three of the World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A’s.
- in 1849 Frederic Chopin died at the age of 39.
Oct 18
- Moby Dick was published in 1851. “Call me Ishmael”, and “Thar she blows!” Have you read it? And again, how did it make it’s mark on American, and even world, contemporary culture? (I’ll have a latte – venti – while you think about it!)
- in 1867, the US closed on the purchase of Alaska from Russia. The purchase was seen as ‘folly’ (whose?) by many Americans of the day.
That’s it – here’s one of the collects for Compline from BCP -
Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night,
and give your angels charge over those who sleep.
Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying,
soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous;
and all for your love's sake. Amen.
Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping;
that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace.
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