Daily Reflection Friday of the Twenty-Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

The prophet Joel seems prescient in these terrible times after the horrors that have happened in Israel that have us all so deeply troubled. Joel begins with, “Hear this, O elders, give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your ancestors? Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. For a nation has invaded my land, powerful and innumerable; its teeth are lions’ teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness.”

But ultimately what Joel tells the nation of Israel and all of us is repentance and trust in God. “Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful.” And we too must seek to be gracious and merciful even in a time of great injustice and terror. We pray with all of Israel and with people of peace everywhere, that God will somehow bring peace and reconciliation because if we do not believe that God can do this for us, then we are lost. This is not a time to surrender to fear and anger but a time to hope in God and to pray, pray continually for peace, peace everywhere.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:

“May they prosper who love you.

Peace be within your walls,

and security within your towers.”

For the sake of my relatives and friends

I will say, “Peace be within you.”

For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,

I will seek your good.

Psalm 122