Prayers for a Wintry Lent
Don't Forget to Laugh
I can't help but notice how many of my friends are in mourning over current events of the past few months. There's a lot of angst and hand wringing, protests and endless talk of resistance. My heart goes out to them in their fear and trembling – but I have to confess, I am not in mourning. Been there, done that, long ago. By the time I was 25, I had seen how the wonderful country I was taught to love and admire did not really exist. Never had. My grieving is long gone, but not my will to build a just and peaceful world.
Here are a few prayers I offer in this wintry Lent, still looking forward to a bright Easter morn.
Don't Forget to Laugh
The Sayings of Abu Francis
Don't forget to laugh.
Don't forget to move mountains,
Especially when you need a sure and swift road.
Don't forget to walk on water.
Don't forget to turn water into wine,
Especially when the water tastes trodden upon.
Don't forget to make the blind see.
Don't forget to feed thousands
With five barley loaves and two fishes,
Especially when you think you have
The money to just take everybody out.
Don't forget to cast out demons.
Don't forget to weep over Jerusalem,
Crying, “O Jerusalem!
Would that I could hold you
Like a mother hen gathers her chicks beneath her wings…
But you would not have me!”
Don't forget to heal lepers.
Don't forget to raise the dead.
Don't forget to laugh.
Small Things
The Sayings of Dorothy Day
Today we are not content with little achievements, with small beginnings. We should look to St. Teresa, the Little Flower, to walk her little way, the way of love ... not content to be like those people who proceeded with the pace of hens about God's business, but like those people who on their own account were greatly daring in what they wished to do for God.
It is we ourselves that we have to think about, no one else. That is why the saints worked. They paid attention to what they were doing, and if others were attracted to them by their enterprise, why, well and good. But they looked to themselves first of all.
Do what comes to hand. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. After all, God is with us. It shows too much conceit to trust in ourselves, to be discouraged at what we ourselves can accomplish. It is lacking faith in God to be discouraged.
– House of Hospitality, 1939
The Crucified
The Sayings of Kahlil Gibran
Jesus was not sent here to teach the people to build magnificent churches and temples amidst the cold wretched huts and dismal hovels... He came to make the human heart a temple, and the soul an altar, and the mind a priest.
These were the missions of Jesus the Nazarene, and these are the teachings for which He was crucified. And if Humanity were wise, she would stand today and sing in strength the song of conquest and the hymn of triumph.
– Written on Good Friday, 1920
