Moses at once knelt and bowed down to the ground.
Then he said, “If I find favor with you, Lord, please, Lord, come along in our company. This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and claim us as your own.” (Exodus 34:8-9 NABRE)
Do we pray for others after they hurt us? After fighting, are we able to pull together for what is right? When we disagree in public discourse, do we seek common ground in the dignity of the human person?
When we see injustice, immorality, selfishness, and suffering around us, when we see empty promises being made and personal agendas being forwarded in public forums and in private living rooms, let us recognize the deceptions of the evil one moving among us in our thoughts and words and actions and choices. Let us see it first in ourselves. Let us not look for it in others, but pray for and encourage each other. Let us pray for ourselves too, that we might rid ourselves of anything that separates us from the love of the Lord.
Today, I will pray for our world, into which the gospel has been brought, that the Lord will remain in our company, pardon our sins, and claim us all as his own.
Saint Leopold Mandic, 20th-Century Croatian Priest who "used to repeat to himself: “Remember that you have been sent for the salvation of people, not because of your own merits, since it is the Lord Jesus and not you who died for the salvation of souls.... I must cooperate with the divine goodness of our Lord who has deigned to choose me so that by my ministry, the divine promise would be fulfilled: ‘There will be only one flock and one shepherd’” (John 10:16)," pray for us so that each of us will always remember what our ministry is.
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