A prayer...

A very good friend of mine emailed this to me today. * * * * * * * i do not know how to pray... In the Name of the One God, the indivisible Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit Glory to you O Lord, Glory to you Holy God, our world... your world is dismayed by the horror that has happened recently. You have heard our many prayers for the victims and still we pray for them. But we are angry and confused. We are angry at them, in our confusion we are sometimes angry at you. We don't understand how this can happen. Desperate to make sense of this we demand more than justice we want terrible vengeance. But Lord protect us from these thoughts! Lord have mercy on us. *We* need to ask for your forgiveness. In the western world we usually view violence on this scale only in the context of entertainment. In the rest of the world we ignore or are oblivious to the scale of daily suffering, oppression and persecution that has become a woeful way of life for millions of people. Even the magnitude of the recent attack only gives us a glimpse into the tumultuous reality of so many other lives. Merciful God, our nations in the west both directly and indirectly have been guilty of terrible atrocities. Native Americans, Jews, Slavs, the peoples of the Balkans, Cypriot Greeks, Palestinians, Iraqis, Kurds, Sudanese and peoples from all over Africa, and Asia and the list still goes on to even our own country men and children have suffered immeasurably for our selfishness. Our economic demands drive our foreign policies, our foreign policies have imposed our own selfish wills on others. For this we are guilty. Lord have mercy on us. Holy Father, we scorn those who do not live in our kinds of freedoms who have no choice, or maybe choose not to live like us. What kind of example are we? We pride ourselves on our democracies and then fail to take responsibility for our governments. Most of us don't even vote. We extol our virtuous freedoms and make economic slaves of other peoples, other countries and then condemn them for not following our footsteps. We have used our freedoms to pursue immorality, to corrode any belief that you matter to us, and to enslave ourselves to our passions. Before we ask for justice, Lord, open our eyes and grant us mercy, grant us the gift of repentance, grant us the gift of loving our neighbours, and loving our enemies. Lord have mercy on us. Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on the terrorists whose hatred has been fanned by our ignorance and harnessed by demonic minds to unleash mass devastation. Lord, I do not understand how or why, but you love them. You demonstrated your love by being nailed on the cross for their salvation. They were not always filled with such hatred, they were not always determined to destroy innocent lives. They once too were innocent children. They too, must have suffered terribly to resort to abominable acts they committed. Lord, they believed in you - the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God Jacob. Misguided as they were they lived to give their lives for you. That is more faith than I have. Forgive me for not being able to give my life up in love and to love for your sake, in the same way they were able to give up their life in their misguided aims. Lord have mercy Most Holy Spirit, have mercy on the families of the terrorists. Some may be grieving, some may be celebrating others are experiencing a wide range of confusing emotions. Show yourself to them and demonstrate your beneficence, your compassion and mercy in their hearts. Cause their violence to end, do not let their lives be disrupted by falling bombs, but rather devastate the hatred in their hearts with power of your love, your grace, your forgiveness. Be their comfort, their compassion, their counsel. Lord have mercy Lord there are undoubtably more terrorists waiting to strike somewhere in the world. Confuse their plans and cause them to fail. Reveal to them their errors and grant them the gift of repentance. Bring their leaders into disarray and destroy their influence. Lord have mercy Lord have mercy on the many ethnic communities who are becoming targets of racial and anti-religious abuse in our own countries. Help us to stand up for them, to show them the love that you have for them. Help us to be compassionate and to understand them. Help us who are so woefully ignorant to respect them. Protect them and help us to protect them. Hear their prayers for their safety. Lord have mercy Change us to be radical Christians who will put you above national interests. Take us from our complacencies and fill us with your Holy Spirit, and burn bright within us. Let the deaths of so many people not be in vain, but let it be a turning point for all of us. Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy. Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen. Lord you are compassionate, beneficent and all-merciful. You are all knowing, transcendent and One You are Holy, All-powerful and supremely loving God. have mercy on all of us. Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen. teach me to pray... and pray within me... i do not know how to pray * * * * * * *