Remembering September 11th - 5 years later

Hello,

The events of September 11th, 2001 are already a horrible part of our history as Americans. As tomorrow passes, I encourage you to take time to pray for all of those who have been affected directly by this tragedy. Those people include World Trade Center workers, firefighers, police officers, EMTs, Pentagon employees, airplane crews, and passengers, widowed spouses, and parentless children. From that day on, many political and military events were born. There are many more people who are now wrapped up in a world filled with violence, fear, hatred, religious extremism than ever before. Those people include members of the armed forces, their families, and the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq.

With so much negative in the world, it's hard to look through and see peace, see God. Therefore, we have to always return to the one place we know we can find God...prayer. Please pray for peace in our world. Please, also, pray for peace in the hearts of peoples of the world. Here is a prayer that can help:

Five years have passed, O Lord,
five years of mourning and of tears,
of struggling to make sense and to go on.
Five years since crashing planes, collapsing building,
rivers of smoke and ash and fear brought death and fear.

Give us the courage to hope again, Father.
To pray even for our enemies, and for ourselves.
Give us the grace to be freed from hate
and unbound from the paralysis of fear.
Give us the freedom of the children of God.

Awaken in our hearts a firm resolve
“to reject the ways of violence,
to combat everything that sows hatred and division
within the human family,
and to work for the dawn of a new era
of solidarity, justice and peace.”

We ask this through the Prince of Peace,
our Way, our Truth, and our Life,
Christ the Lord. Amen.
(Closing Prayer from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops prayer Remembering 9/11)
http://www.usccb.org/vocations/rememberanceprayers.shtml


-Shannon