I read the news today…about a planet gone wild http://apnews.myway.com/article/20101219/D9K734E81.html , and I wondered to myself about the relationship of storms on the planet with storms of the heart. Because, to my mind as severe as the planetary weather patterns have been…they are but a tempest in a tea-cup compared to the perfect storm forming in the heart of man.

With weather, it often takes a convergence of certain conditions…The right barometric pressure, air and water temperatures, etc. In the case of the heart, the absence of hope, faith and charity open the door to fear, greed and anger…setting the stage for new and darker chapter of man’s inhumanity to man.

I would invite all to open your hearts to the following prayer;

Dear Lord:

We may not know you, or we may have forgotten you…but we have truly lost faith in ourselves. We have damaged trust and lost our connection to truth and honor. We have become petty and vengeful. We have become quick to anger and slow to forgive. Figures in society whom we could once encourage our children to aspire to…have slowly given way to talented caricatures of self-absorption who inspire our children to fall, rather than to rise.

(We are desperate for a miracle. This may be harder for some than for others. But if you relate in the slightest way to the paragraph above, then now would be the timeliest and most productive group hug ever!)

As we gather with family and friends this week to celebrate what many have called the greatest miracle ever, please help us to set the burdens we have carried for so long aside.  Please give us the burden of another instead, that we may “give’ relief instead of seek it for ourselves. And in so doing, may we begin to remember what we have forgotten and welcome the light of faith, hope and charity home again.

Amen