Incline Our Hearts
Father, Forgive
Those of us a certain age or older will remember where we were on September 11, 2001. I was in New Haven, Connecticut, packing my car to move to Chicago, where I was beginning a 9 month ministry internship at a parish and at the Episcopal campus chaplaincy at the University of Chicago. My ordination was coming soon, and I felt full of anticipation and hope. It was a beautiful morning, crisp and clear, and I was almost ready to drive off when I heard from one of my roommates that something was happening in New York.
Even now, 25 years later, the recollection of the unfolding horror of those terrorist attacks at the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and on flight 93 shakes my spirit and breaks my heart. Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives that day, leaving countless loved ones who grieve still. In many ways, the events of those fateful hours set in motion key aspects of the last quarter century, both domestically and globally, including wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Today is a day of somber reflection, and also, for people of faith, a day of prayer. In 1958, some 18 years after Coventry Cathedral in England was destroyed by German planes in World War Two, a Cathedral Canon wrote a “Litany of Reconciliation,” that is prayed in that Cathedral every weekday at noon, and by chapters of the Community of the Cross of Nails around the world. The Litany recalls Jesus’ words from the Cross.
Litany of Reconciliation
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
The hatred which divides nation from nation, race from race, class from class,
Father, forgive.
The covetous desires of people and nations to possess what is not their own,
Father, forgive.
The greed which exploits the work of human hands and lays waste the earth,
Father, forgive.
Our envy of the welfare and happiness of others,
Father, forgive.
Our indifference to the plight of the imprisoned, the homeless, the refugee,
Father, forgive.
The lust which dishonors the bodies of men, women and children,
Father, forgive.
The pride which leads us to trust in ourselves and not in God,
Father, forgive.
Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Amen.
