I have a weeping cherry outside my back door and this week I spied the first little blossom.  Out of a tangled mess of branches – the tree needs a haircut a friend has observed – this little pink bloom has burst forth.  But it feels incongruous to be immersed in the beauty of these sparkling spring days when so many people are experiencing unimaginable loss and destruction: the devastation of an earthquake in Morocco, the shocking loss of life and the effects of the floods in Libya, a car run amok in downtown Melbourne – it feels as though the world is tilted toward tragedy.

In the main, our days are a healthy balance of joy and sorrow – as we grow in life and living, we come to appreciate that nothing is ever quite perfect.  But from time-to-time joy will surround us!  These are the days that outshine even the brightest of sun – it doesn’t get better than this, we think to ourselves.  And then there are times when we will sink with sorrow and sadness.  An overwhelming sense of greyness reigns even on the sunniest of days and we wonder if we will ever be able to pull ourselves back into a sunshine world. 

In the face of the shocking natural disasters facing those with whom we share the planet we may feel overwhelmed and powerless.  Certainly, we can respond generously to the appeals for financial aid that will come our way and I think the world of faith provides us with another extraordinary tool.  We can gaze upon the world with prayerful attention.  This world view encourages in us a sense that our prayers can make a difference and help to heal the wounds and sorrows we find in our common humanity. 

In a 2020 weekly Wednesday audience, Pope Francis expressed it this way: 

Those who pray never turn their backs on the world.  If prayer does not gather the joys and sorrows, the hopes and the anxieties of humanity, it becomes a “decorative” activity, a superficial, theatrical, solitary way of behaving.  We all need interiority: to retreat within a space and a time dedicated to our relationship with God.  But this does not mean that we evade reality.  In prayer, God “takes us, blesses us, then breaks us and gives us”, to satisfy everyone’s hunger.  Every Christian is called to become in God’s hands bread, broken and shared.  That is, it is concrete prayer, that is not an escape.

And further, people of prayer:

wherever they are, they always keep the doors of their hearts wide open: an open door for those who pray without knowing how to pray; for those who do not pray at all but who carry within themselves a suffocating cry, a hidden invocation; for those who have erred and have lost the way… Whoever can knock on the door of someone who prays finds a compassionate heart which does not exclude anyone.  (Weekly Wednesday Audience, December 16, 2020)

Some years ago, there was an ABC program, The Abbey.  Five women went to the Jamberoo Abbey (NSW) and spent six weeks living with the Benedictine sisters.  Their days were marked by the liturgy of the hours, gathering in the chapel six times a day with the first call to prayer before dawn.  Sr Hilda, who led the group, explained that they pray before the day begins because whatever joy and sorrow may befall someone through the unfolding of their day, they have one thing in common … ‘unseen a Benedictine nun walks with them and prays for them.’  And we remember that Jesus prayed.  That Jesus had confidence that his Father heard his prayer – even his cry of distress from the Cross. 

We can all join in this task – we develop prayerful hearts that are big enough to pray for the needs of the world. 

This weekend, in our call to prayer in the Collect we will call upon God to:

Look upon us, O God,
Creator and ruler of all things
And, that we may feel the working of your mercy,
Grant that we may serve you with all our heart.

In serving God with all our hearts, we will gather the joys and the sorrows of the world into our communities and we will pray for all who need our prayers.  We will remember that before there was joy there was the deep suffering of Jesus on the Cross.  We will hold in our hearts all those who are enfolded by Jesus on the Cross this week.  We will pray for them.

Perhaps this helps us to hold in balance the joys and sorrows of this graced world of ours.  And our prayerful hearts can be sustained by leaning into whatever helps remind us that the world is a graced, hope-filled place.  We look with a softened gaze toward the world and each other.  A kind word, a generous deed, a thoughtful gesture.  In so doing we can tilt our corner of the world toward hope.  And maybe, in a little way, a ripple of joy and the tiniest of hopeful rays might make its way across the oceans to those amongst us who are suffering devastation and loss.  This is the essential message of the God in whom we believe – that there will always be life.

And I know this because my little blossom told me.

By Cathy Jenkins