A Prayer for all Outcasts

Let us pray that God will teach us to refuse the absurdity of a world which pits us one against the other, which blinds us to the point that we no longer know that we are children of the same Father.

Let us pray the Lord that he will remove from us this insidious ambition to dominate others, to keep earning more and more and to see someone we encounter on our way as someone who is infringing on our territory, on our rights and, why not, on our freedom.

Let us pray the Lord that he teach us to see the other as someone who is precious before God.

Let us pray the Lord to give birth in us to a will of vigilance which leads us to oppose any abusive declaration, wherever it comes from, and which allows us to judge, not persons, but the forces of evil within those laws, decisions and decrees which exclude and reject men without taking into account their God-given dignity.

Give us, Lord, a responsible attitude toward those to whom we have entrusted the responsibility of leading the life of our communities, of our regions, of our countries, in particular for all that concerns the difficulties encountered by the most vulnerable, the poorest, the foreigners and the members of minorities.

Grant us to know how to risk our time and our tranquility so that all can be considered as your children.

Give our Churches the will to unite so as to work together and thus fight with combined strength against any power of division by the one who wants to set us against each other. That in all the lands of the world, through the power of Your Spirit, Churches may create agencies of hospitality, mutual support and advice for the most vulnerable; that associations may be created which, together, use all possible means to come to the help of the excluded.

Lord, before this task that You are entrusting to us, we feel our weakness, but it is You and Your love for all mankind which are our sole assurance and our entire hope.

              Bertrand de Luze, “Courrier de l’ACAT”, October 1996