This content has been archived. It may no longer be relevant
January 16, 2021
Did you know that Madonna House has a prayer house just a few blocks from the Capitol building? Founded in 1981, one of its principle works is to pray for the cardinal, the diocese, the president, members of Congress, and all involved in the American government.
***
Walking around our barricaded neighborhood on Capitol Hill, I felt a tidal wave of pain sweep through my being. High, dark, wire mesh fences rose from the sidewalks all around me, preventing me from walking where I have always walked freely, without hindrance. What is happening, I wondered, not just to our one neighborhood, but to our country?
On January 6, in this new year of 2021, the assault on the Capitol threw the United States into crisis.
In camouflage garb, lines of National Guard troops stand a few feet apart from each other in front of the miles of fences that surround the Capitol Building and grounds, the Senate office buildings, the House office buildings, the Supreme Court and even the Library of Congress buildings.
It’s no longer possible to take our usual prayer-walk around this area. Our circular route that, at first, had to grow wider and wider as more fences went up, is now completely inaccessible. We still lift up the president, the president-elect, and all government workers to the Lord, but from outside the extensive protected bubble.
What is happening to our legacy of democracy? How can I, one lone citizen faced with what appears to be a crumbling way of life, dodge the pit of despair and reach for an elusive peace and hope?
***
I lift up my eyes
to the mountains:
from where shall come my help?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
Psalm 121
***
Why are you cast down, my soul? Why groan within me?
Hope in God; I will praise him still, my Savior and my God.
Psalm 42
***
What will give those words of Psalms 121 and 42 life? It’s been tough work to grapple with the pandemic and all of its ramifications; and this political threat on top of it is a weight almost too heavy to carry. How can I grapple for the light in this much darkness, fear, and doubt? In what deep crevice are peace and hope hiding?
Doing the ordinary tasks of the duty of the moment helps bring a small sense of stability and peace. And the Lord himself provides a pathway to hope.
Fr. Bill Gurnee, pastor of St. Joseph’s Church on Capitol Hill, gives us a clue about how to see things, even national tragedies, with the eyes of faith. In his homily of January 10, the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, he said,
***
“One of the most important things we can do in our life is to nurture and remain aware of our supernatural outlook.”
We inherited this outlook through Jesus’ baptism. It was given to us “to remind us and keep us focused on what really matters, our eternal salvation. . .
As human beings, we are created for heaven. Our decisions and actions should reflect that end. . . . When we prefer ourselves to God, we take an earthly view over a supernatural outlook. The results are always ruinous.”
Father Gurnee further mentioned that Alexander Solzhenitsyn said of the tragedy of the 1917 Russian Revolution: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”
“This week,” Fr. Gurnee said about the break-in at the nation’s Capitol on January 6, “I think we saw the tragic consequences of what happens when individuals and a nation lose their spiritual outlook.”
We are called, he said, “to love our enemies, to forgive those who harm us, and to work respectfully and firmly to proclaim the truth in season and out.”
***
Cardinal Wilton Gregory, Archbishop of Washington, stated on January 6,
“Together we must intentionally pause and pray for peace in this critical moment. . . . As people of faith seeking to bring our Lord into this world by how we live, we must acknowledge the human dignity of those with whom we disagree and seek to work with them to ensure the common good for all.”
Catherine Doherty gives us further encouragement. In her book, Light in the Darkness, she says,
“In the days of the Cuban missile crisis, . . . it was a fearsome moment, and it was normal to be afraid with legitimate, human fear.
“But we belong to him who is perfect love, and perfect love casts out all fear and makes the human fear of destruction and death bearable with God’s grace.
“The first step in such emergencies is to pray for peace, for the dark cloud to pass by, for men to keep their sanity and to remember that God exists. All day we should be beseeching the mercy of God and his intervention in human affairs.
“. . . We must go about our business, which is the business of God. The greatest contribution we can make is to do the duty of the moment and offer it up for our intentions. Let us be ready to serve God and our neighbor without counting the cost.”
***
Father Gurnee, Cardinal Gregory, and Catherine Doherty all point us in the direction of taking personal responsibility for bringing peace to a situation where it is lacking.
They urge us to remind ourselves and others that the Lord is our true and ultimate Leader. And, especially in these tumultuous times, they call us to share God’s love with those around us. In doing that, love grows in our own hearts and encourages others who might also be struggling with despair, fear and doubt.
***
“I have seen so many people reach out to each other to ensure that people were safe,” our friend James said. “With God’s grace, we can overcome the difficulties.”
Our Lady also plays a big role in bringing us to a place of hope and peace. A friend who has been struggling with his own discouragement about what is happening in the United States at this time, said he received a word from Our Lady that gave him great consolation. She said to him in his heart, “My Immaculate Heart will triumph. Do not worry.”
We might have to go through some tremendous trials and upheavals in the days to come, but the Lord and his Mother are with us. We are not alone.
Whether a peaceful transition of power occurs with the presidency, or whether great unrest dominates the political scene for some time to come, our hope is truly in the Lord. In Him we have a Leader who will bring us through it all—not without struggle, but with a certainty and peace we can only know in faith and heroic trust until we see Him face to face.
