Pray for Peace: Monday in Holy Week

The day was relatively quiet at St. Paul's. I rummaged around in the storeroom looking for small candles for the Great Vigil of Easter. I found five boxes with 100 candles each -- that should be enough.

We got the sign up outside advertising our Easter services. We found the brass basin for the fire for the vigil on Saturday evening. The new paschal candle is safely in place in its holder.

Spring has at long last come to Charlottesville. Even the trees now believe it -- the first buds of new leaves have finally appeared.

And so this week of sometimes daunting contrasts unfolds. Life, death, new life is all before us.

As we have done every Holy Week on Monday for the past six years, we read the names of all the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who have died in our wars. Three years ago we read the names of 455; this year we read 126. Fewer, yes, but still 126 young men and women who did not come home and whose families grievously miss them.

And as we have done on Monday in Holy Week for more years than I have been here, we prayed for peace.

Our world desperately needs peace, and who better to pray for peace than us? War clouds loom in Ukraine, Iran, North Korea;drug wars continue on our border with Mexico; and the civil war in Syria has taken a horrific toll. There is no peace in Egypt or in the refugee camps of the West Bank and Gaza. Pray for peace. Pray without ceasing. And do what you can, no matter how small. Peace begins with us.

I noticed something else this year: The Collect for Monday in Holy Week is the only collect this week that mentions the word "peace." Here is the Collect for Monday in Holy Week:

Monday in Holy Week

Almighty God, whose dear Son went not up to joy but
first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he
was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way
of the cross, may find it none other that the way of life and
peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever
and ever. Amen.

Holy Week: Praying for peace, praying for those who died in our wars

The psalm assigned for last night’s Evening Prayer included this:

“O God, you know my foolishness, and my faults are not hidden from you. Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, Lord God of hosts…” (Psalm 69:6-7)

No truer words could we pray this Holy Week for ourselves or for the the leaders of our nation and the world.

Yesterday, I had planned to join a procession in Washington DC that marched from the White House to the Capitol Hill praying for the victims of gun violence. I didn’t get there because of the snow.

I stayed behind in Charlottesville. If Holy Week is about feeling low, it didn’t take long for me to get there.

Air Force Capt. Francis Imlay

As we have done every Monday of Holy Week the last five years I have been here, we assembled in the church nave at noon to pray for peace and an end to violence. That is usually my weekday Holy Eucharist in Holy Week, but Father Nik had volunteered to take the service so I could go to Washington. Instead we did it together.

Our custom at St. Paul’s on Monday in Holy Week is to read the names of the soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen who died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since Holy Week of last year.

There were 15 of us at the noon Eucharist. The people came out from the pews to take a turn reading from the list.

Army Capt. Sara Knutson

There were 189 names on the list. Names like James and Roberto, Jessica and Camelia.

So many, so young.

We began with Francis Imlay, 31, an Air Force pilot from Vacaville, Calif., who crashed a year ago in Central Asia. He had a young son.

We ended with Sara Knutson, 27, an Army captain from Eldersburg, Maryland who died a week ago in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. She was newly married.

So many, so young.

O Lord of Hosts, save us from our foolishness that peace may come at last to this troubled earth, our island home.

By James Richardson, Fiat Lux

Peace One Day: Let's do something

This Monday is Peace One Day, a day set aside by the United Nations to declare a ceasefire the world over, to pause in the violence, to attempt considering what we are doing to each other and to this planet. One day.

Peace One Day began in 1998 as the dream of a British filmmaker. The UN endorsed the idea, and it has spread from the streets up from country to country.

I invite all of us to stop Monday, pray for peace, to do something concrete that will spread peace, if only for a moment. And please join us Monday for our noon Prayers for Peace at St. Paul's, or stop wherever you are at noon and pray for peace. I will offer a few prayers for peace in this space on Monday.

And please, watch this video. It is only 60 seconds. Take a minute to watch, and then take a day for peace.

The Monday Funnies will return a week from Monday.

Remembering this day

From our friend Karen...

The Prayer Tree

by Michael Leunig

God give us rain when we expect sun.
Give us music when we expect trouble.
Give us tears when we expect breakfast.
Give us dreams when we expect a storm.
Give us a stray dog when we expect congratulations.
God play with us, turn us sideways and around.

My experience of Monday in Holy Week: Prayers for Peace

Today began dark, dreary, drizzly, in such sharp contrast to yesterday's gorgeous blue skies, waving palms and the colors of daffodils blooming everywhere in Charlottesville. We descend into Monday of Holy Week in the grayness of the morning showers.

At noon, eleven of us assembled in the St. Paul's nave for our Prayers for Peace. The sun worked its way inside to find us, a sunbeam here and there bursting over our heads through the clear glass of the large windows. The palms from yesterday look a little drier, but the sunlight danced across the fronds in front of the altar.

We sat in silence, though silence not exactly. A bell rang, a wooden kneeler creaked to the floor, someone cleared his throat. The building resonates with voices from many corners. I could hear conversations downstairs in the office, and someone laughing in a hallway. A few moments later,  someone sitting a few rows in front of me began to chant, his voice vibrating from the walls around us. A few more souls arrive, their feet slowly sliding across the wooden floor. We pray for peace, and there is life in these walls, and life beyond these walls. Even whispers carry across and through this sacred space.

A twelfth pilgrim arrives, then a thirteenth and a fourteenth. We were now fourteen strong, praying for the peace that so eludes the world. A few offer spoken prayers, and the words are interspersions in the silence that is not exactly silence. Then I hear geese outside. A bell rings twice. It is time for our Eucharist, and we stand together again, around the table, and remember the events of Holy Week and the Cross.

And so we will gather again, tomorrow, in the Chapel, at noon. Join us if you can.

Monday in Holy Week: Pray for Peace

The most viewed item on this blog is a Jewish prayer for peace that I posted last December during our Day of Prayers for Peace. Please join us today at noon at St. Paul's for our Prayers for Peace and then a simple Eucharist. And pray for peace wherever you are. Here again is the prayer:

Jewish Prayer for Peace

Grant us peace, Your most precious gift, O Eternal Source of peace, and give us the will to proclaim its message to all the peoples of the earth. Bless our country, that it may always be a stronghold of peace, and its advocate among the nations. May contentment reign within its borders, health and happiness within its homes. Strengthen the bonds of friendship among the inhabitants of all lands, and may the love of Your name hallow every home and every heart. Blessed is the Eternal God, the Source of peace. AMEN

Gates of Prayer (Jewish), p. 695

Prayers for Peace spreading through the world

Some weeks ago I installed on this blog a little piece of coding that gives me a daily report on how many hits come to this little corner of etherspace. It shows what phrases or words are used on Google or other search engines to find it, and what cities or countries the hits are coming from. 

Here is where that information gets interesting: Last week, when the Israelis and Palestinians entered the latest phase of their war in Gaza, this blog got a huge number of hits from people looking for the "Jewish prayer for peace" that we did during our Day of of Prayers for Peace in December.

And here is where it gets more interesting: That same Jewish prayer was found by someone searching for it in India and, on the same day, by someone else searching for it in Pakistan. I would like to think it was a Muslim and a Hindu searching for peace through prayer, and maybe they found common ground in a tradition not their own.

Prayers are powerful, and prayers spread from people to people, across the boundaries of hate and violence. And that gives me hope, and fills me with gratitude for all those who participated in the Day of Prayers for Peace (all of the prayers from that day are posted HERE).

Here again is the Jewish prayer:

Jewish Prayer for Peace

 

Grant us peace, Your most precious gift, O Eternal Source of peace, and give us the will to proclaim its message to all the peoples of the earth. Bless our country, that it may always be a stronghold of peace, and its advocate among the nations. May contentment reign within its borders, health and happiness within its homes. Strengthen the bonds of friendship among the inhabitants of all lands, and may the love of Your name hallow every home and every heart. Blessed is the Eternal God, the Source of peace. AMEN

Gates of Prayer (Reformed Jewish), p. 695