Prayer To Live Mercifully

O God, teach me
Not to envy, to hate, to justify, to imitate, to support, to ennoble, or to kill for,
Those who take the food from the table of others and then teach contentment,
Those for whom the taxes are destined, who demand sacrifice,
Those who eat their fill, who speak to the hungry of good times to come,
Those who lead humanity into the abyss, calling
Hate, love,
Unfaithfulness, faithfulness,
Lies, truth,
Slavery, freedom,
Too much, not enough,
Homicide, heroism,
Evil, good.

And, O God, teach me
when I have food, to remember the hungry;
when I have work, to remember the jobless;
when I have a home, to remember the homeless;
when I am free, to remember the imprisoned;
when I am without pain, to remember the suffering;
when I am loved, to remember the unloved;
when I am living, to remember the dying;
when I am dead, to remember the living.
And remembering, help me to destroy my complacency;
bestir my compassion, and thereby
spend my time and my eternity doing good upon earth,
helping by word and deed, by prayer and sacrifice of self
those who cry out for what I take for granted.
Amen.

Fr. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy, is a priest of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church and a co-founder of Pax Christi USA. To receive prayers for peace from the Mennonite Peace and Justice Network: http://peace.mennolink.org/prayersforpeace.html