Skip to main content

Announcing articles of Lenten exercises

A gathering prayer in anticipation of the release of prisoners from Guantanamo, inspired too by

Mansoor Adafi, Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo. New York: Hachette, forthcoming August 2021. 

Let us act now, in part, joining in the SPIRIT.

If once or ever in need of company on a journey

If at your heart drawn chords of love, 

it seems no one is tugging, 


The guides--be they a child, or Mansoor Adafi,

 are many.

Be they the idle though, should-ing thought,

The sugar-plum fairies dancing in your head or

A man gotten his growth spurt between forced feedings in Guantanamo--

Few, the scenes of true reconciliation.

We come weary, beleagured, closed and hurt, avoiding "forced-feeding" 

choked up it has spread throughout the land. 


What is the gratitude of Lent, we might ask as we open ourselves.

Who is kindness itself. Since we aim into the heart of God in each prayer, support our ambition, reaching from the chair to take with gentleness, and grace, needed charge. O God, you who entice us into the path, let us 

unknow the lost way.


Lead us to know the land of milk and honey--the conviction of your nearness and 

Let us pray in the confidence you guard us from temptation. You provide everyone who keeps on knocking at your door, you do not send away empty the hungry or the naked. You yourself were that suffering servant and you looked in forgiveness even from the cross. 


Let us speak of guides.

You may have in front of you this Lent a familiar name, or a new guide. Here are a few examples:



Devotionals

Cheri L. Mills, Lent of Liberation: Confronting the Legacy of American Slavery. Louisville, KY: Westminister John Knox Press, 2021.

40 devotionals written dedicated so the martyrdom of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd not be in vain, so that justice may come to the American Descendants of Slavery.

Justin McRoberts & Scott Erickson, Prayer: Forty Days of Practice. Colorado Springs, CO: WaterBrook, 2019.

A balance to word and image in the text supporting and aiding both contemplation and meditation.

Joan Chittister, 40-Day Journey with Joan Chittister. edited by Beverly Lanzetta. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Books, 2007.

Henri J.M. Nouwen. Lent and Easter Wisdom from Henri J.M. Nouwen: Daily Scripture and Prayers Together With Nouwen's Own Words. Compiled by Judy Bauer. Liguori, MI: Liguori, 2005.

Ignatius of Loyola. Lent and Easter Wisdom from Saint Ignatius of Loyola: Daily Scripture and Prayers Together With Saint Ignatius' Own Words. Compiled by James L. Connor, SJ. Liguori, MI: Liguori, 2009.





Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

What do you think of this passage? What is at stake here? How would you evaluate this author's claim? With what criteria do you support your view? Which authority would you point to as an authority of the principal at stake in your view?

Popular posts from this blog

Closing Guantánamo: 2021 in Review

7306 days open--and what are we doing about it? It is a credit to a committed coalition of human rights defenders that we have seen bi-annual attention to the issue since Obama left office. A closer look will show some of the minor victories month by month. This year in review is  partial.  Since a year ago, former prisoners of Guantánamo organized their  open letter to President Biden specifying demands --our role has been to amplify that letter.  Jan 11, 2021 Amnesty International publishes " USA Right the Wrong: Guantánamo Decision Time " Jan. 22, 2021 Ahmed Rabbani, still prisoner at Guantánamo has published in UK Independent a letter to Biden :  When I was kidnapped from Karachi in 2002 and sold to the CIA for a bounty with a false story that I was a terrorist called Hassan Ghul, my wife and I had just had the happy news that she was pregnant. She gave birth to my son Jawad a few months later. I have never been allowed to meet my own child. President Biden is a man who s
Post a Comment
Read more

The Dragon's Story

Once she raised two eggs on a cliff on the moor. Word spread the Dragon had not been seen. Was she gone? Had she taken ill? Who would protect them! Armed bandits were the first to plan their raid on the nearby villagers. First they sent out a search party. As they neared, they saw she was in her lair. "Why are you here? I should ask you," the Dragon said. "I am the dragon but I fly no more. I fly no more yet am the dragon still." They thought she said, "I cannot fly now." They reported she was roosting eggs. That she did not fly. "Were they golden?" "How do you know?" "Is it true they have magic power?" On they talked until they believed it must be worth the risk. Now the Captain was a pious pirate, the best of the lot. He had risen as chief of them having some schooling in him before he ran from home and lettered, he added arithmetic, and map reading, and had made himself useful until he knew several of the seven seas. He was
Post a Comment
Read more

Crucified Victims and Desecrated Earth

Photo shared by Art Laffin of Dorothy Day Catholic Worker with banner outside the Pentagon Good Friday, April 2, 2021       Today we mourn to mobilize and disrupt modern day crucifixions. (Revised from original script prepared by Art Laffin for vigil at Pentagon).  Crucified Victim #1--Victim of Torture   Jesus was a torture victim who was condemned by religious authorities and executed by the Roman empire. We remember all torture victims, past and present, who have suffered and died from the effects of torture. We remember those prisoners who died at secret U.S. military black sites, as well as the nine men who died at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo.  Last year Djamel Ameziane, a former Guantánamo prisoner, was legally and morally vindicated as the first complaint related to the "war on terror" in which the US was found responsible to a victim of torture, according to  the long awaited decision May 27, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) .      Let us c
Post a Comment
Read more