Prayer Vigil Ends Faculty-Staff Retreat
At the Hour of Jesus's Sacrifice
August 13, 2008
The Central Catholic family gathered on the eve of the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, August 14, to pray for victims of violence and for an end to violence. Faculty, staff, parents, students, alumni and friends attended the chapel service.
The following were the words of welcome by the principal, Deacon Pat Cunningham:
We gather here in this sacred space, in the presence of the God who made us in His own image and likeness. We also gather to acknowledge that, in our ancestors the first man and woman, and in our own persons, we have by acts of self-will and violence great and small slapped the loving God in the face. And we who have scattered ourselves by sin also profess our hope in the plan of a God who loves us so much that he gave, and gives, and will give again His only begotten Son, who turned an act of supreme violence into a sacrifice. It is that sacrifice at this same ninth hour that saved us from the ultimate violence of eternal death, brought us back together in one Church, and gave us His own mother to be our mother.
God brings us here for many reasons: the men and women on death row across the world, the victims they tortured and maimed and murdered; the tiny babies destroyed before their birth, their mothers who by intimidation or misinformation think that the death of their offspring somehow enriches their lives, the merchants of death who profit by the transaction; we come to pray for both victims and victimizers, for consolation and healing for the former, for repentance for the latter; for eternal life for both. And we pray that God lead all of us, not into the temptation to solve problems with mental or verbal or physical violence, but to communion in His Blessed Sacrament.
So it is meet, right and just that at the end of this week before Mary’s Assumption, when we have celebrated the life and death of martyrs like Sr. Teresa Benedicta, deacon Lawrence, Pope Pontian, and Fathers Gapp and Kolbe, we gather to celebrate the great reversal of violence. In weakness, God’s power reaches perfection. The cross, instrument of torture, has become in Christ the royal throne of God.
Intercessions were offered for the victims and victimizers, for it is not the will of the Father that anyone be lost.
The service concluded with a Spanish recitation of the prayer of Bishop Oscar Romero and the singing of the Prayer of St. Francis.
