Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Sick Pilgrim

Home
Catholic
Dark Devotional: Prayers for the Faithful

Dark Devotional: Prayers for the Faithful

Last updated on: June 22, 2018 at 9:32 am by Maren Grossman

Dark Devotional: Prayers for the Faithful 2018-06-22T09:32:33-05:00 Maren Grossman

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Art by the devout and confiscated Brian Jocks.

O God, who raised up Saint John the Baptist

To make ready a nation fit for Christ the Lord,

Give your people, we pray,

The grace of spiritual joys

And direct the hearts of all the faithful

Into the way of salvation and peace.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

One God, for ever and ever. Amen

My stomach lurches as I read these words.

A nation fit for Christ the Lord. Oh God.

Maybe it’s okay. Maybe I can pray this prayer with sincerity. After all, the prayer asks that we be made a nation fit for Christ the Lord. It doesn’t claim that we are already that nation.

Direct the hearts of all the faithful.

The faithful. Who are the faithful in this scenario – those who travel thousands of miles to save their children, or those who jail them? I have a rosary. There is at least one rosary for every person in my house. There are no rosaries for detained immigrants. They often carry them over thousands of miles, only to have them confiscated along with their children.

I pray for “the faithful” every Sunday at Mass. We never seem to pray for immigrants – but maybe we do in spite of ourselves. Maybe prayers for the faithful have nothing to do with us Mass-goers, and everything to do with immigrants without rosaries.

***

Though I thought I had toiled in vain,

And for nothing, uselessly spent my strength,

Yet my reward is with the Lord,

My recompense is with my God.

A man from Honduras killed himself recently, after he was separated from his children at the border.

I pray for mercy for him, that he will be rewarded for trying to save his family, that God will be his recompense.

I pray for mercy for myself, and then immediately feel that this is stupid and go back to praying for immigrants.

***

John heralded [Jesus’s] coming

By proclaiming a baptism of repentance

To all the people of Israel;

And as John was completing his course,

He would say, “What do you suppose that I am?

I am not he. Behold, one is coming after me;

I am not worthy to unfasten the sandals of his feet.

John the Baptist announced the coming of Christ. He was necessary. The world needed someone to say, “Hey, world! Look at this guy! Notice him! Watch him! He is special!”

The world needed John, because Christ “grew up like a sapling before him, like a shoot from the parched earth; there was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, no appearance that would attract us to him. He was rejected and avoided by men, a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, one of those from whom men turn away, and we held him in no esteem” (Isaiah 53:1-3).

Christ was not differentiated from the despised.

We need people to remind us that immigrants are precious to God, just as the world needed John the Baptist to point out Christ.

***

They were going to call him Zechariah after his father,

But his mother said in reply, “No. He will be called John.”

But they answered her, “There is no one among your relatives who has this name.”

So they made signs, asking for his father

What he wished him to be called.

He asked for a tablet and wrote, “John is his name,”

And all were amazed.

There was no one in their family named John, yet they invoked this name in the naming of their only child. They reached outside their own family for something apart, because they knew that that thing apart was of God.

There is a tendency to want to see immigrants as something apart. Yet when we read, “you have formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb,” we are reading about immigrants. When we pray for the faithful, we are praying for them, perhaps more than we are praying for ourselves. The degree to which we see them as apart, reflects the fact that they are only apart because they are of God.

Previous Post

June 19, 2018

Sick Pilgrim at the Movies: The Art Imitating Life of Incredibles 2

Next Post

June 25, 2018 Sick Pilgrim Goes to the Movies: Black Panther

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Advent Approaching Mystery art Book Reviews Catholic Ghost Story Catholicism community Confession Current Events Dark Devotional Deconstruction Deconstruction Fellow Travelers I Want To Believe Interview Laudato Si Lent Mary Matthew's Letters Movie Reviews Music Reviews Our Charism Personal Essay Pilgrims Pope Francis Popular Piety Prayer Publishing Richard Beck Saints Satan Sheed and Ward Sick Pilgrim Charism Sick Pilgrim Chats Sick Pilgrim Events Sick Pilgrim Travelin' Medicine Show Sick Pilgrimage to The West Sick Pilgrims Small Joys Spiritual Autobiography Spooky Files of Ave Maria Magazine Spooky October Spooky Pilgrim Spooky Pilgrimage Strange Journey The Inklings Things Keeping Us Going Trying to Say God TV Reviews Uncategorized women in the Catholic Church Wonder Podcast Write the Vision

Select a Month February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 October 2019 September 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Vanity of vanities! Everything is fleeting and meaningless. Where is this pessimistic proclamation found?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Psalms Ecclesiastes Proverbs Job