Monday, September 11, 2006

9-11 intercessions

After my post, I went to Mass and found myself with long lists of prayer intentions related to the anniversary of the deadly attacks of five years past. Those murderous acts are only part of a web of death and violence that begets more and more of the same, forming almost an anti-culture in itself. The deaths in Iraq alone since our nation's offensive are many times over the number of deaths of September 11, 2001. At this point, even the number of U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq is close to the number of deaths in the Twin Towers; add the Iraqi police death toll and you've more than equaled the 9-11 deaths. This is not exactly the path of peace.
Anyway, I thought it would be good to share some of the prayer intentions I lifted up:
 
For the young person who is--at this moment--close to succumbing to the temptation of terrorism...
For the victims of violence who are consumed with anger or vengeance...
For those who are in danger of hardening their consciences against immoral choices...
For those who support the networks of terrorism or of untrammelled corporate greed...
For those detained on suspicion of terrorism...
For military personnel tempted to ruthlessness...
For the souls of those who died as "collateral damage" in war zones...
For the souls of those who died perpetrating acts of violence (in the hope that they had a brief, shining moment of repentance)...
For the souls of those who died as victims of government-sponsored violence...
For the souls of those who died as victims of genocide...
For current victims of genocidal policies...
For young people without hope...
For young people surrounded by violence...
For children who are orphaned by violence...
For those whose grief leads them to self-destruction...
For those whom God is calling to a more active mission of evangelization...
For an increased commitment to the corporal works of mercy...
For the courage to witness in word and deed to our faith in Jesus Christ...
For the grace to repent of our own habitual blindness...
For the grace of having priorities in line with the Gospel...
For the grace to recognize and respect the living image of God in every person He has created...
 
 
 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Living with the threat of being killed, molested, and any other type of evil that man can commit against another human being is got to be the worse type of life. What can we do about terrorists, though? Is there some kind of Good option than annihilating them from the earth? What does the Bible say? Really, I am serious, because there are more people wishing the U.S. would just have a nuclear war with the terrorists and make them disappear.

Let us pray that God will take care of all and teach us His ways.

Anonymous said...

For the grace to recognize and respect the living image of God in every person He has created...
THIS ONE IS A REAL HUMDINGER.