Prayer Offered for February 22, 2021

Gracious and trusting God, the poet Maya Angelou tells us a brave and startling truth about ourselves as humans: that we have the ability to create peace and freedom for all. “A Brave and Startling Truth” by Maya Angelou:

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet

Traveling through casual space…

To a destination where all signs tell us

It is possible and imperative that we learn

A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it

To the day of peacemaking

When we release our fingers

From fists of hostility

And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it

We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe

Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger

Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace

Out of such chaos, of such contradiction

We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it

We, this people, on this wayward, floating body…

Have the power to fashion for this Earth

A climate where every man and every woman

Can live freely without sanctimonious piety

Without crippling fear

When we come to it

We must confess that we are the possible

We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world

That is when, and only when.—AMEN.

Prayer Offered By: 
Senator Durazo, written by Sr. Michelle Gorman, RSM
Prayer Date: 
Monday, February 22, 2021
Prayer Status: 
Archived