Reading (Lectio) Read the following Scripture two or three times. John 8:1-11 Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. But early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area, and all the people started coming to him, and he sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle. They said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him.
Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger. But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Again he bent down and wrote on the ground. And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders. So he was left alone with the woman before him. Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”
Meditation (Meditatio) for 5th Week of Lent from Catholic.Bible:
After the reading, take some time to reflect in silence on one or more of the following questions:
• What word or words in this passage caught your attention? • What in this passage comforted you? • What in this passage challenged you?
In the Gospel reading for today’s Solemnity, the angel Gabriel speaks three times in addressing the Virgin Mary.
The first is when he greets her and says, “Rejoice, full of grace, the Lord is with you” (Lk 1:28). The reason to rejoice, the reason for joy, is revealed in those words: the Lord is with you. Dear brother, dear sister, today you can hear those words addressed to you, to each one of us. You can make them your own each time you approach God’s forgiveness, for there the Lord tells you, “I am with you”.
All too often, we think that Confession is about going to God with dejected looks. Yet it is not so much that we go to the Lord, but that He comes to us, to fill us with His grace, to fill us with His joy. Our confession gives the Father the joy of raising us up once more. At the center of everything we believe, it is not about our sins.
This is the center of it: it is about His forgiveness.
Think about it: if our sins were at the heart of the sacrament, almost everything would depend on us; on our repentance, our efforts, our resolves. But no. He is the center of it. Far from it.
The sacrament is about God, who liberates us and puts us back on our feet.
Let us recognize once more the primacy of grace and ask for the gift to realize that Reconciliation is not primarily our drawing near to God, but His embrace that enfolds, astonishes and overwhelms us. The Lord enters our home, as he did that of Mary of Nazareth, and brings us unexpected amazement and joy.
Let us look at things from God’s perspective, then we will rediscover our love for Confession. We need this, for every interior rebirth, every spiritual renewal starts there, from God’s forgiveness.
May we not neglect Reconciliation, but rediscover it as the sacrament of joy. Yes, of joy.
For our shame, for our sins becomes the occasion for an experience of the warm embrace of the Father, the gentle strength of Jesus who heals us, and the “maternal tenderness” of the Holy Spirit. This is the heart of Confession.
And so, brothers and sisters, let us go forward to receive forgiveness. And you, dear brother priests who are ministers of God’s forgiveness, offer to those who approach you the joy of this proclamation: Rejoice, the Lord is with you! Set aside rigidity please, obstacles and harshness; may you be doors wide open to mercy! Especially in Confession, we are called to act in the person of the Good Shepherd who takes his sheep into his arms and cradles them.
We are called to be channels of grace that pour forth the living water of the Father’s mercy on hearts grown arid, dry. If a priest does not have this way of being, if he doesn’t have this feeling in his heart, it is better that he doesn’t go hear confessions.
A second time the angel speaks to Mary. She was troubled by his greeting, and so he tells her, “Do not be afraid” (v. 30).
The first was “Be not afraid, the Lord is with you.” In the Scriptures, whenever God appears to those who receive Him, he loves to utter those words: Be not afraid. He says them to Abraham (cf. Gen 15:1), repeats them to Isaac (cf. Gen 26:24), to Jacob (cf. Gen 46:3) and so on, up to Joseph (cf. Mt 1:20) and Mary. In this way, He sends us a clear and comforting message – once our lives are open to God, fear can no longer hold us in thrall. Because fear does that, it holds us hostage.
Dear sister, dear brother, if your sins frighten you, if your past worries you, if your wounds do not heal, if your constant failings dishearten you and you seem to have lost hope, please, be not afraid. God knows your weaknesses and is greater than your mistakes. God is greater than our sins, much greater. He asks of you only one thing- that you not hold your frailties and sufferings inside. Bring them to him, lay them before him and, from being reasons for despair they will become opportunities for resurrection. Be not afraid! The Lord asks for our sins.
I remember the story of the monk in the desert who gave everything to God. He had a life of fasting and prayer. And the Lord asked for more. He said, “Lord I have given you everything. What more can I give you?” The Lord says, “Give me your sins.” This is what the Lord asks of us. Be not afraid.
The Blessed Virgin Mary accompanies us: she cast her own anxiety upon God. The angel’s proclamation gave her good reason to be afraid. He proposed to her something unimaginable and beyond her abilities, something that she could not handle alone. There would be too many difficulties, problems with the Mosaic law, with Joseph, with the citizens of her town and with her people. Yet Mary did not reject. Those words – be not afraid – were sufficient for her; God’s reassurance was enough for her. She clung to him, as we want to do tonight.
Yet so often we do the exact opposite. We start from our own certainties and, when we lose them, we turn to God. Our Lady, on the other hand, teaches us to start from God, trusting that in this way everything else will be given to us (cf. Mt 6:33). She invites us to go to the source, to the Lord, who is the ultimate remedy against fear and emptiness in life. There is a lovely phrase written above the confessional here in the Vatican that reminds us of this. It addresses God with these words,
“To turn away from you is to fall, to turn back to you is to rise, to abide in you is to have life” (cf. Saint Augustine, Soliloquies I, 3).
“To turn away from you is to fall, to turn back to you is to rise, to abide in you is to have life” (cf. Saint Augustine, Soliloquies I, 3).
In these days, news reports and scenes of death continue to enter our homes, even as bombs are destroying the homes of many of our defenseless Ukrainian brothers and sisters. The vicious war that has overtaken so many people, and caused suffering to all, has made each of us fearful and anxious. We sense our helplessness and our inadequacy. We need to be told, “Do not be afraid”.
Yet human reassurance is not enough. We need the closeness of God and the certainty of his forgiveness, which alone eliminates evil, disarms resentment and restores peace to our hearts. Let us return to God and to his forgiveness.
A third time the angel speaks to Mary and says: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you” (Lk 1:35).
“The Lord is with you,” “be not afraid”, and the third thing he says is, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you.” This is how God intervenes in history: by giving his very Spirit. For in the things that matter, our own strength is not enough. By ourselves we cannot succeed in resolving the contradictions of history or even those of our own hearts. We need the wisdom and gentle power of God that is the Holy Spirit.
We need the Spirit of love who dispels hatred, soothes bitterness, extinguishes greed and rouses us from indifference. Spirit gives us harmony. He is harmony. We need God’s love, for our love is fragile and insufficient. We ask the Lord for many things, but how often we forget to ask Him for what is important, for what He desires most to give us: the Holy Spirit, the power to love.
Indeed, without love, what can we offer this world? It has been said that a Christian without love is like a needle that does not sew: it stings, it wounds, but if it fails to sew, weave or patch, it is useless. This is not a Christian. This is why we need to find in God’s forgiveness the power of love: the same Spirit who descended upon Mary.
If we want the world to change, then first our hearts must change.
For this to happen, let us allow Our Lady to take us by the hand. Let us gaze upon her Immaculate Heart in which God dwelt, “our tainted nature’s solitary boast”. For Mary is “full of grace” (v. 28), and thus free from sin. In her, there is no trace of evil and hence, with her, God was able to begin a new story of salvation and peace. There, in her, history took a turn.
God changed history by knocking at the door of Mary’s heart.
Today, renewed by God’s forgiveness, may we too knock at the door of her Immaculate Heart. In union with the Bishops and faithful of the world, I desire in a solemn way to bring all that we are presently experiencing to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I wish to renew to her the consecration of the Church and the whole of humanity, and to consecrate to her in a particular way the Ukrainian people and the Russian people who, with filial affection, venerate her as a Mother.
This is no magic formula but a spiritual act.
It is an act of complete trust on the part of children who, amid the tribulation of this cruel and senseless war that threatens our world, turn to their Mother. Like children when they are scared, they run to their Mother seeking protection.
We give her all of their fears and pain in her heart, in abandoning themselves to her. It means placing in that pure and undefiled heart, where God is mirrored, the inestimable goods of fraternity and peace, all that we have and are, so that she, the Mother whom the Lord has given us, may protect us and watch over us.
Mary then uttered the most beautiful words that the angel could bring back to God: “Let it be done to me according to your word” (v. 38). Hers was no passive or resigned acceptance, but a lively desire to obey God, who has “plans for welfare and not for evil” (Jer 29:11). Hers was the most intimate sharing in God’s plan of peace for the world.
We consecrate ourselves to Mary in order to enter into this plan, to place ourselves fully at the disposal of God’s plans. After having uttered her “Fiat”, her Yes, the Mother of God set out on a long journey to the hill country, to visit a relative who was with child (cf. Lk 1:39). She went with haste and I like to think of the Madonna this way. The lady who hurries to come to assistance to protect us. May she now take our own journey into her hands. May she guide our steps through the steep and arduous paths of fraternity and dialogue, along the way of peace.
O Mary, Mother of God and our mother, in this time of trial we turn to you. As our mother, you love us and know us: No concern of our hearts is hidden from you. Mother of mercy, how often we have experienced your watchful care and your peaceful presence! You never cease to guide us to Jesus, the prince of peace.
Yet we have strayed from that path of peace. We have forgotten the lesson learned from the tragedies of the last century, the sacrifice of the millions who fell in two world wars. We have disregarded the commitments we made as a community of nations. We have betrayed peoples’ dreams of peace and the hopes of the young. We grew sick with greed, we thought only of our own nations and their interests, we grew indifferent and caught up in our selfish needs and concerns.
We chose to ignore God, to be satisfied with our illusions, to grow arrogant and aggressive, to suppress innocent lives and to stockpile weapons. We stopped being our neighbor’s keepers and stewards of our common home. We have ravaged the garden of the earth with war, and by our sins we have broken the heart of our heavenly Father, who desires us to be brothers and sisters. We grew indifferent to everyone and everything except ourselves. Now with shame we cry out: Forgive us, Lord!
Holy Mother, amid the misery of our sinfulness, amid our struggles and weaknesses, amid the mystery of iniquity that is evil and war, you remind us that God never abandons us, but continues to look upon us with love, ever ready to forgive us and raise us up to new life. He has given you to us and made your Immaculate Heart a refuge for the church and for all humanity. By God’s gracious will, you are ever with us; even in the most troubled moments of our history, you are there to guide us with tender love.
We now turn to you and knock at the door of your heart. We are your beloved children. In every age you make yourself known to us, calling us to conversion. At this dark hour, help us and grant us your comfort. Say to us once more: “Am I not here, I who am your Mother?” You are able to untie the knots of our hearts and of our times. In you we place our trust. We are confident that, especially in moments of trial, you will not be deaf to our supplication and will come to our aid.
That is what you did at Cana in Galilee, when you interceded with Jesus and he worked the first of his signs. To preserve the joy of the wedding feast, you said to him: “They have no wine” (Jn 2:3). Now, O Mother, repeat those words and that prayer, for in our own day we have run out of the wine of hope, joy has fled, fraternity has faded. We have forgotten our humanity and squandered the gift of peace. We opened our hearts to violence and destructiveness. How greatly we need your maternal help!
The day will come
When the sight of this earth will be lost
I will take my leave in silence
As the stars look on
I know the sun will rise again
The hours will still bring pleasure and pain
In heaving waves.
When I think of the end, time crumbles
I see by the light of death
That the lowliest existence is rare
And the worst moments are precious
What I longed for will be set aside
The things I pursued in vain -
Let them pass
Let me turn
To things I overlooked
And carelessly threw away
To possess them truly until they are mine
As the stars look on.
- a poem from Tagore, On the Shores of Eternity, Poems from Tagore on Immortality and Beyond.
“As much as we search after those spiritual highs, that sense of peak connection to God, and I still think we should, we cannot always attain them. And to feel empty and disappointed in those numerous moments when we are left down on the ground, decidedly uninspired, well – what then? But no- it is not all about highs. The bread and butter of one’s relationship with God, like one’s relationship with one’s spouse and children, is daily devotion, a sense of steadfastness – standing there through thick and thin, through the dry days and the high days and the low days, but still being there to make the lunches and say the brachot (blessings). It is a relief that sometimes all God wants of me is simply to show up, to be my small uninspired self in His presence, to show my devotion through emptiness and humility as well as through passion and intense emotion. “
Rachel Anifeld, Parsha Thoughts and More
Amen and Amen. Amen for Your blessings inspiring me throughout this work thus far, and Amen for blessing me with the persistence to continue and to complete it.
Koren Tehillim, Psalm 41 Commentary
The year is 1909. The movie, Against the Ice, opens with a dog sled crossing an expansive sea of ice and snow with two men, arriving to a makeshift hut where they meet a team of men who step into swift action, providing medical aid and comfort to Jorgensen who needs amputation. An instant later we are celebrating at a Christmas meal, acknowledging the lives lost and the sacrifices the explorers have made to finish the mission of the Denmark Expedition. You can feel the relief in the men as their exhaustion pours out of them and their imaginations are already returning them to the embrace of home. They believe they are finished only to hear the Captain pronounce at the end of his toast, “We’re half way there.” One can imagine their hearts stop at the sound of that phrase – “We’re half way there” – their minds crossing into despairing confusion as they listen to the Captain share that he and Jorgensen retrieved a map on the remains of the explorers in the last expedition. This map points to the cairn that holds the sought after treasure; it holds the essential documentation recorded on the expedition into this unknown region of the world. And so, and so, the Captain went on, they needed to go “further” and “cross the ice cap” to retrieve the findings left behind.” It is this “halfway” point that reveals who has the calling to explore the unknown and trek in the icy wilderness for at least another year.
“We’re not going home then?” one man replies, which seems to be the reply for all.
The Captain returns with some astonishment, “This is why we are here boys. Without these findings the North agreement could be lost, claimed by the Americans. Now, Jorgensen is incapacitated. Now I can’t do it alone. Which provides one of you lucky boys with a once in a lifetime opportunity. I’ll need a volunteer to accompany me.”
Iver Iverson, a wide-eyed and 25 year old zen mechanic, with no previous experience as an arctic explorer, was the only volunteer. In the film he is portrayed as the innocent figure with idealism matched by a true spirit of reverence to his Captain, his teacher, along with something else in particular. He is the gentle “simple” one who is perceived as the “fool.” He is the “simple” childlike figure who is perceived as childish, dooming the expedition. He is the “simple” figure that intrinsically knows not only how to “show up” in any condition but also how to practice lashon tov (good speech), a profound act of “devotion through emptiness and humility as well as through passion and intense emotion….. standing there through thick and thin, through the dry days and the high days and the low days, but still being there to make the lunches and say the brachot (blessings).”
Ivan is the redeeming figure, the conscious feminine, the union of masculine and feminine. He has what Suzuki calls “imperturbable composure,” the still point always close and accessible, the light that brings ships in from the storm. He walks in Truth and speaks it only at the most opportune time for mutual survival, for continuing on the wings of creative flux whose plans elude us…completely. His movement leaves no trace, leaves nothing extra behind. No malice, no regret, no gloom, no doom. Just being. Pure essence.
Ivan seems to stand comfortably in Holy sorrow, holding the raw tension of the opposites held in life and death as he grieves the loss of his beloved dog who he named. His dog initiates him across a threshold, never the same, accompanying him with each subsequent sacrifice, made again and again, never easier, always for the lives of the pack until the pack is altogether gone.
Ivan seemingly stands comfortably in Holy imagination, Holy possibilities that lie just beyond the reach of his Captain’s eye that occasionally catches a glimpse here and there, a spark of hope arriving on a mirage or two or even mustard seeds of gratitude. As conditions become fiercely untenable and the Captain shows signs of madness, Ivan becomes the container for them both….never giving up….until it is finished….and “all is well” arrives at their door. The Captain remembers.
Who is he? Is he you? Is he me?
Is he the original face of humans?
The Captain remembers.
While it may seem otherwise, forgetting is more difficult than remembering.
Forgetting requires a body impervious to ecstasy,
remembering requires only a fleeting kiss from a beloved.
Forgetting demands a heart hard and brittle,
remembering requires only a moment’s cry of joy.
Forgetting requires constant denial of God,
remembering requires only a moment of surrender.
Forgetting demands ceaseless hiding from the Other,
remembering requires only an accidental meeting.
Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Pirke Avot, Ethics of the Sages, 3:10 Commentary
Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments,
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover
to remove.
Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
There lies within a great objective Love, constant and true only to itself. The syllabi for this truth is held in one’s life experiences, each one connected to a divine well no matter how ordinary, dull, messy, ugly, or cruel. As we mature we know, more and more but never completely, that the journey to knowing this Love is “hard and steep” with many deaths and sorrows, never complete, unfinished til our last breath, the final act. It takes the bold strength of faith, born of seeing at least one of those moments honestly with the heart, to hold the uncertainty of incompleteness amidst many attractive and opposing impediments that promise sweet relief and feel oh so right for reasons yet unknown, revealed slowly over time through sorrow’s gate.
We come to know, more and more, how we ourselves admit myriad impediments, at a quickening pace, spiraling toward death, over and over and over again. Death interrupts, stopping and slowing the cacophony of impediments careening toward it as the moth to the flame, inviting us each time to bow to the emptiness of loss, however it is born.
Death comes in many forms throughout our short lives and from all directions, inviting us to bow to pure sorrow that arrives or is born, not made or conjured. We are invited to bow, not to the sorrow born out of an idea, manufactured or possessed, disguising fear, doubt and selfish impediments in holy dress. No, no, no. The sorrow I am speaking of arrives from Mystery alone, compassionately aware of fear, doubt and selfish impediments lying in the mix, Mystery weeping for us and with us, always, calling for our return home, awakening the map engraved in our hearts at birth.
Sorrow is a form of ultimate Love that slows the quickening pace breaking our backs, our hearts, our bodies, our spirit. Sorrow turns our paper thin and childish understanding into a diamond, toward a mature relationship with Love, a mature relationship toward Life where we become children rolling out of our center, free, joyful, and dancing. Sorrow is the west wind that carries us Home to Amor. Sorrow is the fire that burns away impediments, a hundred moth wings. Sorrow is the wing of God that shelters us from the unreal. Sorrow is Joy, unmasked.
This love “feeds on faith”, strong confidence that grows with each observed sorrow held in a contemplative container. Such containers hold the still point and the movement. Their design, their principles are always the same architecturally, simple and ordinary: be still and silent, without hope, without thought, without love. Daily sitting practice – bowing to stillness, silence, and the breath of life – is the repetitive movement that raises real consciousness. In the waiting, the impediments rise up. It is painful to witness. In the waiting, the impediments slow down, cool and evaporate. In the waiting Mystery enters revealing new understanding. In the waiting a mustard size seed of humility is planted in the heart by Her, releasing boulders from the heart….changing the world, one breath at a time, one moment at a time, into the hidden matrix of All.
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning. The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry, The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy. Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony Of death and rebirth
T.S. Eliot. East Coker
The stillness….of reverence…opening the gates of Joy.
The stillness opening the gates for the children…
Walt sits, in the movie Gran Torino, knowing that when impediments flood, the stillness is All. Trained by battle. Trained by sorrow. He waited. Still. In silence. He heard, from the silence, the sacrifice to be made that returned life to the children, the next generation.
Seven times she fell on the second rung, never looking around for those who saw.
Seven times she rose and turned to stand in line again, her eyes never leaving the bars.
And then suddenly, all at once, she swung to the third rung and then the whole way through, reaching the end, like it was nothing at all.
I wept and smiled all at once, never the same. Stretched.
She smiled and walked on.
“A righteous person will fall seven times but will rise. They are not righteous because they rise despite their fall; rather, they are righteous because they rise from their fall…. and because of how they bounce back, walk through frailties, through temptations, mistakes, etc. The beinoni will never be the spiritual superstar who is holy by nature. The beinoni is a gritty, get your hands dirty, spiritual role player who can say, ‘Am I going to be tempted by this? Yes. Am I going to be distracted by that? Yes. Am I going to fall? Yes.'” – Joshua Sussman
We can waste our whole lifetime not falling and never live,
Feverishly accessing safety and control and never live,
Seamlessly polishing our personal “brand” to be worshipped and never live,
Powerfully controlling others to align with our own image and never live,
Continuously receiving affirmation and never live,
Grotesquely enjoying victory in vengeance and never live,
Sickeningly gaining wealth and never live…
Even for a moment.
Maybe.
The effort engaged in a single moment of rising from a fall from grace, anguishing despair, or real hardship is the “divine substance” of character that transforms the world, whether we know it or not. Some of us have seven of these moments. Others have 7×70 or 7×700. We’re likely not to know how many because it is so organic, so ordinary to our original face of kindness and beauty.
The characters in the Maid and Mare of Easton inspire us for this reason, they show “gritty, get your hands dirty, ordinary, spiritual role players” who never deny temptation, distraction, or falls and never stop rising to be a “role player” for the child, the parent, the student, the co-worker, the friend, the teacher, the community. These characters are undoubtedly in each of our lives, playing a supportive role in inviting us to our ordinary moment of rising out of ash, witnessing our becoming…real, a continuous, never-ending adventure.
“Single mother Alex turns to housecleaning to make ends meet as she escapes an abusive relationship and overcomes homelessness to create a better life for her daughter, Maddy”
“Mare Sheehan, an office police investigator in a small Pennsylvania town, investigates a brutal murder as she tries to keep her life from falling apart.”
And set an intention to align yourself with the Highest Will.
Remember that your life is a gift
And everything you are
And everything you have been given
Is yours to share.
Make your life an offering,
And draw close to me.
Give thanks.
Offer gratitude for the bounty and blessings.
Look for opportunities to be grateful.
Acknowledge moments of well-being.
Engage in forgiveness.
Acknowledge the hurt and pain you have caused
And let this awareness guide you
In seeking healing and repair.
Practice compassion and understanding.
Let it release you from anger, resentment and regret.
In every moment, the Mystery proclaims, I am here. Draw Close.”
Rabbi Yael Levy, Callings in Directing the Heart
“Like a moth to a flame”…..we innocently and willingly go into the wilderness of the unknown and the next forty plus years, if we are so blessed, we spend searching for our way back home. Some of us are more “prepared” to meet the difficulties of the wild, to cast their “everything” light on the world, remembering… the voice that says, “I am here, draw close, align yourself with the Highest Will” and know your strength.
Every word of wisdom, from all traditions, carries within it the All, the cosmos. Practices and rituals birth from the words out of the solar plexus of people desiring the peace of Home. Wisdom creates endless portals opened by our offerings of humility, vulnerability, blessings, mistakes, forgiveness, penance, doubts, and deeds. Every word, until resonance is found, is like a tuning fork waking the soul, a well of living water replenishing a dried out spirit, a fountain of youth that resurrects what has died, manna in the desert where our deepest longing becomes known through our affliction, a fire that burns away “a hundred moth wings a night”, a sword and shield, a compass and map… All are portals calling us home.
So much to discover and reconcile along the way. So much to tame, for out of our impatience we have birthed hundreds of moth wings, out of our fatigue we drank the liquor and “kool-aide”, out of our isolation and hopelessness we took bites out of our souls, out of our loneliness, naivete and sympathies we have wed to liars and thieves dressed as messiah’s, priests, rabbis, and buddhas.
The greatest hidden secret is that when we see our impatience as impatience, our loneliness as loneliness, the liars and thieves as liars and thieves, how lost and powerless we are, we come out into a clearing and hear from the depths of our interior…. the Mystery proclaim, “I am here. Draw close.” Robert Frost’s refrain, “miles and miles to go before I sleep” comes alive and you are awestruck by it all unfolding in you, seeing the grandeur, the gift, of “everything” comprising this adventure of your life … for the first time.
Learn who the person is who longs for life, Who loves days of seeing good
President Zelensky’s seventeen second message on March 9th comes with an assuring wink. He doesn’t assure survival of the body as they are all clearly willing to endure hardship and die for freedom, for Truth. He assures us of the survival of human integrity, of our very souls in this fight against evil. I watch again now to see his wink at the end to release my exhale and prayers to God who is in this battle with them, for us.
In Psalm 31:21-22, the poet sings and reassures us: You have secreted [your children] in the secret places of Your presence, Away from unsavory people’s plotting; You have hidden them in a sukkah away from arguing tongues. Blessed is Adonai Who has revealed the wonders of Your covenantal love Within the rocky fortress of my city.
All the lives lost the the lives in battle for Justice are secreted away in God’s presence, hidden and safe, eternal. May our collective weeping etch their memories in our hearts forever that we never return to this wretched bind ever again.
