"Lord Make Us Instruments of Your Peace"

June 16, 2022

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Greetings in our crucified and risen Lord Jesus. All shootings are evil, insane, tragic; we feel sadness for the dead and empathy for the aggrieved. But a fatal shooting in an Episcopal Church at a ‘boomers’ potluck’ brings this string of tragedies very close to home. The mystery of inquity drives us back to the One in whose stripes we are healed.

This Sunday let us add these common intercessions:

Light perpetual for the three who have died, as for all recent victims of violence,

Consolation for their families, and

Encouragement for all the people of St. Stephen’s, Vestavia Hills, of the Diocese of Alabama,

Wisdom and fortitude for our nation amidst this rash of such incidents,

Judgment upon and forgiveness of the sins of the perpetrators.

Let us pray, in these words written by a saint who discovered the peace of Christ in a time as violent and anxious as our own:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is
hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where
there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where
there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where
there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to
be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is
in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we
are born to eternal life. Amen.

The peace and comfort of Christ,

+GRS