August 4, 2014
The sun is slipping slowly across the western hills of Lake George in New York as I write.
It is a beautiful summer’s evening, and as I look past the statue of Our Lady of the Lake, which sits prominently on the Paulist property here, I can see the calm waters of a quiet evening on the lake. The boats have mostly gone to their slips and docks. It is a time of peace.
But that peace is not reflected everywhere in our world. This evening as I prayed the Office of Hours, I was reminded of what is supposed to be happening in and around Jerusalem. The Psalm prayer after the second Psalm said this: “Almighty God, you gave life to the new Israel by birth from water and the Spirit, and made it a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a people set apart as your eternal possession.”
The Israel to which the prayer refers is today’s Church. But it includes ancient Israel, ancient home of God’s people. And as we pray the hours of the Church from day to day we hear again and again the call for peace in Israel and around the world. For example, the intercessions for Sunday of the first week included this prayer: “Grant peace to the world, let every land flourish in justice and security.”
I understand that Israel has a right to defend itself. That Hamas is a terrorist organization. That Palestine has a right to be a state. But when all those facts are contradictory, people suffer. In Palestine, civilians in large numbers are dying. Israeli soldiers are dying. Even though we never hear about it, I’m sure what might be called Hamas soldiers are dying.
In the Ukraine, separatists are fighting the national army. They are reportedly supported by Russia. In the meantime Flight 17 of Malaysia Airlines is blown from the sky and a proper investigation of that disaster cannot be conducted. And there are flash points across the world including several places in Africa.
“Grant peace,” we pray, “to the world, let every land flourish in justice and security.” Peace is not an easy quality to bring into our lives. We find it difficult at times to have peace in our own families. Too often, children seem arrayed against their parents; husbands are at loggerheads with their wives and vice versa; parents wonder what did I do wrong that my kids no longer attend Church. And the world as we know it is turned upside down.
I wish I had a solution to all these difficulties. As I watch politicians try to work through the difficulties facing our world, and their frustration at being unable to solve the difficulties, I’m more and more convinced that much of what we can do is to remain as informed as possible about all the situations as crises come and go, and pray for peace with justice everywhere in our world. It may seem simplistic. But the power of prayer might just be the power that is missing from the formulas being put together to solve dilemmas like the Israeli-Hamas conflict.
We’ll never know unless we continue to pray.