of your peace–

when there is hatred–hatred within and outside of myself–let me sow love, especially when it is challenging to love myself;

where there is injury–injury I have caused through my willfulness or ignorance, injury that has happened to me because of the willfulness or ignorance of others–let me sow pardon; allow me the grace to pardon;

where there is doubt–doubt in myself, doubt in the intentions of others, doubt caused by trauma, or fear, or greed–let me sow faith, knowing that faith may be all that I have to hold onto;

where there is despair–in myself, caused by my own thoughts, outside of myself, caused by the world around me–hope; hope in the promises of the Risen Lord, in the knowledge that people can be good, and loving, and wonderful when they choose to be so;

where there is darkness–darkness in the world, in my heart–let me be the light: the light reflected from the Light of Lights;

where there is sadness–grief–let me sow joy, acknowledging that from the grief comes strength, wisdom.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled–but to console, knowing in my own sufferings that I am able to relate to the sufferings of others;

to be understood, as to understand–to listen, to listen to what is being said sometimes without words, or in words that may not perfectly name the situation, knowing that to be understood ourselves, we must make first the effort to understand.

to be loved as to love–loved as Christ, loving as if everyone we embrace, we meet, we see, is somehow a reflection of Christ, knowing in the face of rage and hate and discrimination, we witness the Passion.

For it is in giving that we receive–in letting go of what we see as controlling our direction, we receive the grace of God’s direction;

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned–for in no situation of our lives have we not been either a bully or a victim, and in being one of each, know perfectly the states and conditions of each;

and in dying that we are born into eternal life.

Amen.