17th March 2025

Tidying my bookcase, I rediscovered “Open our Hearts, Daily prayers for Lent and Holy Week” by Ann Gerondelis, published in 2018. I flicked open the page for today and read:

How do we respond
to the unrelenting horrors we call the news?
God, help us not to grow silently numb
to pain and suffering –
or become eager to hear the latest.
Build us into a people
who authentically
and courageously
cry in pain.

I was struck by how relevant this prayer seems to the here and now; could it in fact be even more relevant than in 2018?

The prayer continues:

May the beautiful sounds of your church
also include those who passionately name injustice and suffering,
and cry “No!”
And may the voices of your people echo in chambers of justice around the world.

The reference to injustice reminds me of being in the kitchen a few weeks ago with Mum. We’d unearthed an old Greenbelt cassette tape – and Mum was still able to play it! I heard a Garth Hewitt song for the first time in years – it featured in “The Feast of Life. A musical of hope” from Christian Aid. In the song we are encouraged to “Dance on Injustice”. It is a prayer as much as it is a song – that we be taught how to make a stand and to build a community of peace where love has the upper hand.

May our cries be cries that show our solidarity with those who suffer and may we be filled with God-given hope to sing and dance and believe that “justice is going to win”.

Ruth Allen