Post Election
John and Mrs. Massey
Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice,
here by a smiling look, there by a kind word;
always doing the smallest right and doing it all with love…
A word or a smile is often enough to put
fresh life in a despondent soul…
Therese of Lisieux
Six feet-plus tall, blonde, all and pure “Texas to the bone,” John sounded broken when he called three weeks ago. Eight months of COVID-19 isolation, the break-up of his dream relationship, simply feeling without outlets for good fun, he had relapsed – “thrown away ten months of recovery” in his words.
I wasn’t harsh or cruel… just direct: “Stop throwing your own pity party just because you’re human. Get out of yourself and, in the midst of this pandemic, do something for someone else.”
Last week came THE CALL. You could hear his smile from 1200 miles away. His enthusiasm, indeed his joy vibrated through the air. He had embraced a suggestion: Stop somewhere and buy one or two bunches of flowers; drive to a local hospital; find a nurse who’s just plain exhausted from working to save the lives of coronavirus patients, from placing last calls to their families and holding their hands as they die; just give her the flowers, thank her for her efforts, and walk away.
He was more excited than a quarterback whose team just won the Superbowl and he was crying in gratitude for the pure joy of seeing the expression on her face. “I’m gonna keep doin’ this every two weeks.”
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“I implore You, cast Your eyes upon a multitude of little souls;
choose from this world, I beg you, a legion of little victims
worthy of Your love….”
Therese of Lisieux
When I was a child, in fact, throughout my entire conscious life, Mrs. Massey was always “Mrs. Massey” and “an old time Navy nurse.”
In The Rites of Christian Burial, the Church prescribes that in the prayers of the Rites I should have referred her by her first name. But I feared that to do so would cause “my tongue (to) cleave to the roof of my mouth.” (Psalm 137:6) From the greeting at the doors of the church for the Mass of the Resurrection to the final Prayer of Commendation at the graveside, I prayed for and referred to “Mrs. Massey.” Choosing the closing words of the graveside homily was easy – she was, after all, “an ole Navy nurse” -
“Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
O hear us when we cry to Thee…”
William Whiting
The opening lines of “The Navy Hymn.”
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“A soul in a state of grace has nothing to fear
of demons who are cowards….”
Therese of Lisieux
With an opprobrium-, vitriol-, vituperation-filled electoral campaign in the rearview mirror, the nation struggles through the ditches and over the bomb craters of ballot counting. Neighbor no longer speaks to neighbor and families are rent asunder by political ideas and lies and a pandemic that has claimed almost 235,000 lives.
“The function of prayer is not to influence God,
but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”
Soren Kierkegaard
As we await “the final results” and knowing that some – many – of our fellow citizens will never accept them, perhaps it is time for a Litany for the Nation – not to change God, but that, in the days and weeks and years to come, we might be changed.
You whom we call Everlasting Father, el Shaddai, Elohim, Creator,
Yahweh, the Almighty, Allah, Great Shepherd,
the Consolation of Your People,
Krishna, Ahura Mazda, Gitche Manitou,
the Way, Righteousness, Servant, Shiva,
Jehovah, and Wonder Counselor,
hear, we implore you,
the prayers of the people.
Grant to him who will guide our nation
a sense of deep and abiding humility;
may he recognize that he is called to
be Your servant and the servant of Your people.
Infuse in him a recognition that You, O God,
choose to dwell in the souls of all of Your people
and, as he respects and serves each and all,
he respects and loves you.
Grant us, O God of Justice,
leaders who dare to “love simplicity”
and embrace a “horror of pretense.”
Fill them with a sense of being “little”
in the vastness of Your Creation.
End, we implore you, the national division of ideologies.
May those who assume positions in our legislative bodies
recognize that their first responsibility is to
to “support and defend the Constitution” and
to “bear true faith and allegiance to the same,”
and fealty to none but Your people and their good.
Renew in the hearts of those who will lead our nation
a commitment to Honesty and Empathy.
Grant them Prudence in decision making,
dedication to Justice based in the courage to seek
the common good and highest values;
Fortitude in defending the poorest of the poor,
and an abiding sense of Temperance that they
may be neither “a reed blowing in the wind”
nor concerned with “the fine clothing
found in kings’ palaces.” Matthew 11:7)
Fill them with an abiding sense of Your presence
in the hearts of your people.
May they accept Your grace,
so that they will serve with “meek and humble” hearts. (Matthew 11:29)
May those who have sought honor for honor’s sake
and sacrificed personal integrity and self-respect
in the pursuit of the world’s vanities be opened to the
gifts of Integrity and Courage
only You can give.
Grant them childlike simplicity
that they might one day enjoy the Heavenly banquet.
May they live in and according to Your grace,
so that they may never again “fear demons who are cowards.”
Father of all people, grace our nation’s leaders
with Your vision to see in DACA recipients
the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who have served
our nation; the doctors, nurses and hospital staffs
who tend to our sick – young and old;
the teachers who form the next generation of Americans;
the manual laborers who struggle from dawns earliest moments
into the dark of night in construction and the
work that others will not do;
and the future entrepreneurs who will form our nation’s future.
Grant them Your wisdom, that they might understand
refugees and immigrants seeking freedom
and opportunity for their children today
share the same dream as generations
of immigrants past.
Grace them with a recognition that the immigrant of today –
working in our nation’s farms and orchards,
meat processing plants and hospital laundries –
are our nation’s future.
You whom we call “Wonder Counselor, God Hero,
Father Forever” hear our prayers
for Your children suffering through the pandemic
that afflicts our world.
Fill the physicians who struggle to serve them
with an abiding sense that they live in fidelity
to your command to Love.
Cradle in the palm of Your hand, O God of Kindness,
the nurses who hold the hands of the sick,
the frightened and the dying.
Grant Your profound Peace to
first responders, EMTs, cleaning and security teams
and fill them with an abiding sense that they live
and work to support
“these, the least of my brothers and sisters.” (Matthew 25:40)
God of unending energy, you alone know the exhaustion
of our brothers and sisters who serve the sick,
renew them, we implore you
through the simple kindnesses of those who today
enjoy your gift of health.
Comfort the sick with an abiding sense of Your presence.
Console them in their suffering, grace them with the
Hope of Eternal Life in their dying.
Grant courage and Your peace to the living and
those who mourn.
May our nation’s firefighters and police officers
and their companions and coworkers know that they are called
to do Your will and in doing the work of Justice
they are instruments of Your Peace.
You who gift us with Brother Sun and Sister Moon,
confirm in your servants a commitment
to the preservation and renewal
of Your supreme gifts.
May we praise You by protecting Brothers Wind
and Air and Sister Water,
“so useful, humble, precious and pure.”
May Your people and those to whom we entrust the responsibility
of governance praise You by guarding
“our Sister, Mother Earth who sustains and governs us,
producing varied fruits with colored flowers and herbs.”
Grant us Your Wisdom, O Lord, that we might live according to
Your gifts of Science.
Grant us Your Wisdom, O Lord, that we might live according to
Your gifts of Science and with deep-souled Honesty!
Grant us Your Wisdom, O Lord, that we might live according to
Your gifts of Science and with deep-souled Honesty and endless Compassion!
Rain Your Truth upon us, O God!
Rain Your Truth and Mercy upon us, O God!
Rain Your Truth and Mercy and Justice upon us, O God!
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In 1888, fifteen-year-old Therese Martin joined her two older sisters in the cloistered Discalced Carmelite monastery in Lisieux, Normandy - barely miles from her home. (Another sister followed her several years later.) After nine years fulfilling the simplest of tasks in the monastery, she died from tuberculosis at age twenty-four. She once wrote, “I rejoice to be little because only children, and those who are like them, will be admitted to the heavenly banquet.” On her deathbed, she said, “I only love simplicity. I have a horror of pretense.” Her last words were “My God, I love you!”
Significantly, despite never having travelled far from her childhood home, she is celebrated as the patron saint of missionaries and HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis patients.
Therese lived the lesson of doing the smallest tasks well and to the Glory of God. John learned the lesson that the smallest act of kindness brings God’s Joy.
Ballots are being counted and disputed and we can only repeat
Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
O hear us when we cry to Thee…
And in these trouble times, let us, like John, practice little kindnesses.