INTERCESSORY PRAYER - Our food of Hope

INTERCESSORY PRAYER

Our food of Hope

Br John Allen Green ofm

Translation by

Lords Prayer

Neil Douglas-Klotz

in Prayers of the Cosmos

O Birther! Father- Mother of the Cosmos

Focus your light within us - make it useful. Create your reign of unity nowthrough our fiery hearts and willing hands

Help us love beyond our ideals and sprout acts of compassion for all creatures.

Animate the earth within us: we then feel the Wisdom underneath supporting all. Untangle the knots within so that we can mend our hearts' simple ties to each other.

Don't let surface things delude us, But free us from what holds us back from our true purpose.

Out of you, the astonishing fire, Returning light and sound to the cosmos. Amen.

Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread;

and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

FRANCISCAN

REFLECTIONS FROM THE HERMITAGE Intercessory Prayer - Our food of Hope

So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.

(Matthew 5:23-24)

WORDS HAVE POWER

Twenty years ago and a few weeks before her death, Princess Diana travelled to Bosnia and made a promise to a stranger and a landmine victim, “you will not be forgotten”. Muhamed Suljkanovic, had lost both his feet stepping on a landmine in the forest outside his house, a remnant of Bosnia's three year war. He explained that these words of Princess Diana were like “wind behind his back”. While thousands of similar victims in Bosnia have taken their own life in desperation, he says that these words kept hope alive in his heart.

Twenty years ago I was working with the street children in Bertrams Johannesburg. One afternoon I caught two of the boys underneath my motorcar sawing away at the brake fluid pipe. In anger and exasperation shouted to the one young boy, “you are going to end up in jail”. My sorrow at these harsh words that I had spoken in anger could not undo the prediction of what would come about.

Our words and our actions have power that extends into decades and even into generations. They have the power to spread and multiply like a virus. The abused becomes an abuser; the victim of discrimination becomes the source of violence and domination… We suffer and we transmit our pain to others. A violent tempest that can tear a community apart into different factions; holding on to other’s mistakes and binding us into knots that are the debts we hold over each other’s heads even as we pray, “forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors”. Loosen the shackles that imprison and bind us in guilt and despair even as we have loosed the knots that bind as others prisoners of their mistakes.

These are the knots, the troubles and struggles we face for which we cannot see any resolution … knots of discord in your family, lack of understanding between parents and children, disrespect, violence, the knots of deep hurts between husband and wife, the absence of peace and joy at home.

There are also the knots of anguish and despair of separated couples, the breakup of the family, the knots of a drug addict son or daughter, sick or separated from home or God; knots of alcoholism, the practice of abortion, depression, unemployment, fear, solitude; the knots of forgetfulness… These are the knots of our life! They suffocate the soul, beat us down and betray the heart’s joy just as they separate us from each other and separate us from God and all of creation.

Each one of us are called by God to share in the power of unbinding just as Jesus asked the community to unbind Lazarus from his death bindings. It is in our act of unbinding the other into freedom that we also find out own freedom and joy.

It is only in this state as one family and community that we stand before God to become fully reconciled in God’s love and Mercy. Jesus the Christ becomes open and present to us in the NOW, bringing all the past into that now for that deep healing that is only possible in and through God. For God is always present in the NOW; the past and the present and the future all present in this one moment of now. It is in this moment of God healing those deep past hurts that are future is redirected towards new life and joy.

I have seen this power and I witness to the wonder and the joy of the sacrament of reconciliation. Everywhere in in every place and in every time this is God working to restore us to full life; God does not forget us! Even if your heart today is filled with anger and resentment and bitterness, one small step will begin a new journey.

Hold your enemy towards God, “Lord, bless this person”. The smallest little beginning and God will reach across the abyss to lead us to freedom. Without this we will never know peace and joy! Without this we will never know love. Without this we will destroy each other and our world.

All of this, freedom, peace, joy and love are within our grasp today; freely given by a God who is with us. Let us not wait for sickness and death to overcome us. Let each of us take this little step today, “Lord, bless this person”. Each little step will transform us, will transform our families, will transform our communities and will transform the world. Lord, I know that within myself I do not have the power to forgive and so Jesus I hold before you today my enemy and my tormentor that you may bless them and give me life. The Lord grant you peace!

Intercession is a prayer of petition which leads us to pray as Jesus did. He is the one intercessor with the Father on behalf of all … especially sinners. He is "able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them." The Holy Spirit "himself intercedes for us . . . and intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." [COCC 2634]

Though we often imagine that our intercessory prayers are meant to summon God’s intervention in changing the circumstances of others, it is also often the case that we are remade in the process of seeking the redemption of those for whom we pray.

For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we

ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. (Romans 8:2426)

THE SPIRIT HELPS IN OUR WEAKNESS

The wisdom of the Church Fathers

Origen: Just as a sick man does not ask the doctor for things which will restore him to health but rather for things which his disease longs for, so likewise we, as long as we are languishing in the weakness of this life, will from time to time ask God for things which are not good for us. This is why the Spirit has to help us. [CER 4:76-78.]

Ambrosiaster: Our prayers are weak because they ask for things contrary to reason, and for this reason Paul shows that this weakness in us is helped by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. The Holy Spirit helps because he does not allow anything we ask for before the proper time or against God’s wishes to happen. Paul says that the Spirit intercedes for us not with human words but according to his own nature. For when what comes from God speaks with God, it is obvious that he will speak in the same way as the one from whom he comes speaks. For the Spirit given to us overflows with our prayers in order to make up for our inadequacy and lack of foresight by his actions and to ask God for the things which will be of benefit to us.

Commentary on Paul’s Epistles. [CSEL 81.1:287-89.]

Chrysostom: The Spirit is always there to help us and to do his part. Since we are ignorant of much that is profitable for us and we ask for things which are not profitable, the gift of prayer used to come into one person in the church, and he would be the person set aside to ask God for the things which would benefit them all. [NPNF 1 11:446.]

Chrysostom: It is not possible, says Paul, for us human beings to have a precise knowledge of everything. So we ought to yield to the Creator of our nature and with joy and great relish accept those things which he has decided on and have an eye not to the appearance of events but to the decisions of the Lord. After all, he knows better than we do what is for our benefit, and he also knows what steps must be taken for our salvation. Homilies on Genesis 30.16. [FC 82:233.]

Augustine: “We do not know how to pray as we ought” for two reasons. First, it is not yet clear what future we are hoping for or where we are heading, and second, many things in this life may seem positive but are in fact negative, and vice versa. Tribulation, for example, when it comes to a servant of God in order to test or correct him may seem futile to those who have less understanding. But God often helps us through tribulation, and prosperity, which may be negative if it traps the soul with delight and the love of this life, is sought after in vain. [AOR 27.]

The Spirit that intercedes is nothing but the same Love which the Spirit has wrought in you. Love itself groans in prayer, and he who gave it cannot shut his ears to its voice. Cast away care, let Love make request, and the ears of God are ready to listen. The answer comes… not what you want but what is to your advantage. Homilies on 1 John 6.8. [LCC 8:307.]

THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO LOVE OUR NEIGHBOUR… BUT INTERCESSORY PRAYER… PRAYING ON BEHALF OF OTHER PEOPLE… IS ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL.

we have been made partakers in Jesus' victory over sin and death (1 John 4:4) we have the authority as sons and daughters of God to pray for others, pushing back the darkness of sin and oppression. In prayer, we have a weapon that has divine power to destroy strongholds" (2 Corinthians 10:4).

What an unspeakable grace to be allowed to deal with God in intercession for the supply of other’s needs! To be able to take part in Christ's great work as intercessor is such a blessing. It is wonderful to be in close union with Him and to mingle your prayers with His! What an honour to have power with God in heaven over souls and to obtain for them what they do not even know or think!

What a privilege, as a steward of the grace of God, to bring to Him the state of the church or individual souls, of ministers of the Word, or of missionaries in far away lands, and plead on their behalf until He entrusts you with the answer!

What a blessing, to strive together in prayer with other believers until the victory is gained here on earth or over the powers of darkness in high places!

It is indeed worth living for to know that God will use you as an intercessor to receive and dispense His heavenly blessing and, above all, the power of His Holy Spirit here on earth.

This is in its very act the life of heaven, the life of the Lord Jesus Himself in His self-denying love, taking possession of you and urging you to yield yourself wholly to bear the burden of souls before Him and to plead that they may live.

Too long have we thought of prayer simply as a means for the supplying of our needs in life and service. May God help us to see the place intercession takes in His divine counsel and in His work for the kingdom.

God invites us to seek thereby not only personal transformation but the transformation of the world as well. An intercessor is one who takes up a "burden" that goes far beyond his or her own needs and intentions.

What a mystery of glory there is in prayer! On the one hand we see God in His holiness, love, and power waiting and longing to bless man. On the other hand there is sinful man, a worm of the dust, bringing down from God by prayer the very life and love of heaven to dwell in his heart.

But the glory of intercession is so much greater when a man is bold and asks from God what he desires for others. He seeks to bring to one soul, or maybe hundreds and thousands, the power of the eternal life with all its blessings.

Intercession! Surely this is the very holiest exercise of our boldness as God’s children? It is the highest privilege and enjoyment connected to our communion with God. It is the power of being used by God as an instrument for His great work of making people His dwelling place and showing forth His glory.

Surely the church should count intercession as one of the chief means of grace? The church should seek, above everything else, to cultivate in God's children the power of an unceasing prayerfulness on behalf of the perishing world.

Believers who have to some extent been brought into the secret should know what strength there is in unity. And what assurance there is that God will avenge His people who cry to Him day and night.

It is only when Christians stop looking for help in external union and bind together as one to the throne of God through an unceasing devotion to Jesus Christ and an unceasing continuance in supplication for the power of God’s Spirit, that the church will put her beautiful garments and her strength, too, and overcome the world. (Bodo, Murray: Standing in the Gap: 2008)

INTERCESSORY PRAYER WITHIN THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES

Moses: Scripture presents Moses as both Israel’s archetypal prophet and intercessor and could well be described as father of biblical prayer.

Samuel: is Israel’s second legendary intercessor (Jer 15:1, Ps 99:6–8). The Bible portrays Samuel in a variety of biblical offices. Samuel acts in the role of priest, prophet, judge (1 Sam 7:6, 15–17), seer, and “king-maker.”² In Samuel, it is for the last time that one person embodies all of these roles in the Old Testament. He is the last of Israel’s great 3 judges as we know them primarily from the book of the Judges.

Jeremiah: was born into a priestly family from the tribe of Benjamin in Anathoth (Jer 1:1). Anathoth is located near Jerusalem and was assigned to Israel’s priests and Levites (cf. Josh 21:18). Jeremiah was still young when the word of God reached him regarding his appointment as a prophet to the nations. In fact, Jeremiah's destiny was already sealed before he was conceived. Before I formed you in the womb I knew you (תִעְיְדעְדְי) and before you were born I consecrated you (תשדקה); I appointed you a prophet to the nations. (Jer 1:5)

Amos: was an 8th-century prophet from Judah who was sent on a divine mission to the Northern Kingdom of Israel. He was the earliest among the so-called writing prophets. There is a difference between intercession and petition, the most important element of the lament. Petition is essentially prayer for yourself while intercession is prayer on behalf of someone else (Balentine 1984:162; Miller 1994:263). Although there is a difference, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between these two literary forms. Amos cannot be seen as an intercessor in the same category as Moses or Jeremiah. On the other hand, although the intercession of Amos (Am 7:2,5) is a brief moment in the prophetic activity ascribed to him, it is true intercession for forgiveness.

HEALING PRAYER FOR THE WORLD

by Patience Robbins.

The other day I found myself weeping over the state of our world. I felt deep grief and pain; I call it being heartsick. I felt moved to seek out another person so I could share this deep pain. As we sat together and I wept, I felt comforted. I told of the troubles I was carrying and then felt able to turn them over to God–to God’s light and love–as well as pray for the courage and willingness to do what I am called to do.

I am reminded of a wonderful story that Richard Rohr tells that, when Francis and Clare of Assisi got together for holy conversation, they wept over the state of the world. This has been so affirming of my experience and reminds me of the stream of contemplative people who have gone before us who also were deeply aware and sensitive to the suffering in the world.

One of the most encouraging ways I have found to remain aware and hopeful is by recalling these people who have travelled this contemplative path. I have some favourite mentors: Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Etty Hillesum, Therese of Lisieux, Jerry May. I continue to look to their lives as examples of great courage and great generosity of spirit. They lived and breathed a deep willingness to be utterly available for God in the world.

I pray to these people. I beg them to join with me in prayer for our world and for me that I, too, might have that deep generosity to be a vehicle or manifestation of God–of Love–in our broken and troubled world.

Again, Francis’s words as he was dying come to mind: “I have done what is mine to do, now do what is yours.” One of the tasks that has been given me to do is envisioning our world full of light, love and compassion. In my imagination, I can encircle it with deep peace, allowing that gift of peace to flow through me and out to all the world united with this stream of courageous, generous and loving people.

This is a profound mystery–that my loving, my embracing peace and sending it out to the world could make a difference. There is also another aspect of this mystery about which Jerry May has written: “This contemplative vision of God as vulnerable, woundable, brings about a fresh sense of intercessory prayer as well. Though we often think of intercessory prayer as praying to God for the sake of someone else, the contemplatives often sense an invitation to pray with God, to share God’s joy and sorrow, which in turn God is sharing with all creation. There is a notion here of ‘keeping God company’ in whatever God is experiencing.” Perhaps I am keeping God company as God weeps over the world. At times, I really feel that I am!

The other person who has voiced my experience is Etty Hillesum, a young Jewish woman in Holland, who lived through the horrors of the Holocaust, and died at Auschwitz in 1943. In her journal, An Interrupted Life, she writes: “I said that I confronted the ‘suffering of mankind’ (I still shudder when it comes to big words), but that was not really what it was. Rather I feel like a small battlefield, in which the problems, or some of the problems, of our time are being fought out. All one can hope to do is to keep oneself humbly available, to allow oneself to be a battlefield. After all, the problems must be accommodated, have somewhere to struggle and come to rest, and we, poor little humans, must put our inner space at their service and not run away.”

I, too, often experience this struggle—what to do, how to respond, how to make sense of the complexity, the vastness of the problems. How do I make a difference? How do I take it all in? I can only be “humbly available”—offering my inner space for all of these questions.

As a contemplative, this holy envisioning, keeping God company, and providing some opening and availability for God, have emerged as responses of how to act with deep love and compassion for our broken and suffering world.

This reflection first appeared in Shalem News, Winter 2007.

PERSONAL ENCOUNTERS

Healing: May, 1994 and three months since the urologist cleared me to travel. I had spent a number of months at the Kensington Sanatorium Hospital in Johannesburg due to testicular cancer, and had reached the stage of morphine on demand. From my private room on the second floor of the hospital I was able to look out over the tops of the trees to the beautiful blue sky beyond. The sound of the rustling trees gave me some comfort, during my Lenten journey. A quiet voice inserted into my silence; “Come, I will lead you back to my Son”.

After the many months of pain, I felt like the resurrected Lazarus as I was placed in a wheelchair and rolled out into the gardens; the whispered, blissful touch of the sun on my skin. On 12 May, I set out for pilgrimage that included Fatima in Portugal, Lourdes in France, The Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Paris, the Monastery of Jasna Góra in Częstochowa in Poland which is home to the Beloved miraculous icon of Our Lady of Częstochowa, “The Black Madonna”. Thereafter by car to the Basilica of the Visitation of Our Lady in Hejnice in the Czech Republic and on to Vienna in Austria and finally to the greater Benedictine monastery at Melk on the bank of the Danube River between Salzburg and Vienna.

Included in my party on this pilgrimage were two dear friends, John Richard Bernhardt who acted as interpreter and Pieter Kruger. Also travelling with us was Riaan van Burick, a victim of polio and a technical buyer at my holding company.

From the Rosary Basilica in Lourdes, our little group made its way through the crowds, down the steps and to the left towards the Grotto of Massabielle, also known as the Miraculous Cave or the Cave of Apparitions. As I crossed the courtyard towards the cave, the tumult of the crowds was silenced but miraculously I could still hear the rustling wind in the trees; a link to the calling in my hospital bed. That evening as we joined the singing procession and the rain running down my cheeks hid my tears.

As we arrived at the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary in Fatima, I was drawn to the Chapel of the Apparitions where three children, Lucia Santos and her cousins, Jacinta and Francisco Marto, were first visited by Mary. I knelt down in silence to pray. Time stopped for me at that moment as the hours passed and no one disturbed me.

With the receding light I came back into awareness of the present moment; there was a feeling of a warm glow throughout my body, and knew immediately that I had been healed. Back in South Africa later, this would be confirmed by the doctors; no trace of the cancer remained.

Raised from the dead: An urgent call from the Kempton Park hospital; did I know Mr Ctibor (Pronunciation: TSIH-tyah-bor), a Czech gentleman in his mid-forties? One of my companies in Cloorkop employed a Czech toolmaker whose name was Ctibor.

This man had been missing from work and there had been no response to those who checked on him in the caravan park where he lived. Could I contact his family to come to the hospital urgently as Ctibor was in critical condition in intensive care? The man had no family that I could contact but I promised to come immediately.

I rushed across to the hospital from Johannesburg, but on my arrival at the intensive care unit in the hospital, I was advised by the nursing staff that Mr. Ctibor had just died.

Because he had been a Catholic, even though non-practicing, I requested a few minutes to say some prayers with the body. I took the man’s hand and softly told him that I was present and I would pray with him through these moments of his death.

As I was paying the Rosary aloud, the lights in the ICU dimmed out and then slowly came back to full brightness. With this the monitors which were still attached to Ctibor came to life with the alarm ringing which brought nurses rushing across. I was quickly bundled out of ICU and returned to Johannesburg.

Later, when Ctibor was back at work, I talked with him about this near death experience. He remembered my presence and the prayer calling him back from a place of light and peace; he did not want to return. This became a turning point in this man’s life.

A New Heart: October, 1994 and my life in the corporate world was coming to an end. A pilgrimage to Israel to walk in the feet of Jesus, seemed appropriate.

I have visited many places around the world, but of all the cities in the world, Jerusalem has a smell that is unique; it is the smell of the desert, dry and musty, silent, akin to the antiquity of an Egyptian pharaohs’ tomb. But there is so much more, subtle as the most carefully crafted perfume; the smell of water kissing limestone, the smell of the oasis. There is the smell of massed humanity mingling with the smell of the sacred, the smell of myrrh coloured with smell of foods, the smells of balsam, cassia-cinnamon, and spikenard. Its recall arouses an emotion of aching yearning, of desire, of remembrance, a clenching hunger of the soul.

Travelling east from Jerusalem and into the dusty dunes of the Judaean desert, an encounter. I see

something merrily glinting in the sun against the stark whiteness of the powdery desert. Walking over to it, I bend down and pick it up; a brass 76mm cartridge case! I look at the base of the cartridge case in disbelief; there is the year of manufacture, the batch number and my own company’s logo. Lord, have mercy. The tangled emotions of a burning bush with the blindness on the road to Damascus and a broken heart; all the ingredients for leaving behind old days, and a new journey begins.

Back in Jerusalem, back in the Holy Sepulchre and to the celebration of Holy Mass, of Eucharist. With me at this most holy moment, a young couple from a faraway oceanic island. An earnest desire is expressed, the desire that springs from hunger, and unthinking, without judging, I extend an invitation, “come with me”. This now becomes a time and a place where all the yearning, the desire and the remembrance come together in the entwining of hearts. There is no careful preparation, no notion of any worthiness, only the hunger and the hot tears of gratitude… true Thanksgiving.

FINDING FORGIVENESS AND COMPASSION TO PRAY FOR THE WORLD

Eloi Leclerc's The Language of the Soul's Night from his book ‘The Canticle of Creatures

April, 1945: The Allied armies are penetrating deep into the heart of Germany. A lengthy freight train is moving slowly along the line from Passau to Munich, with thousands of exiles packed into its cars. They have been shut up there for twenty-one days now. Hundreds have already died; hundreds more are at death's door, delirious from hunger. The train started from Buchenwald and has made a long detour through Czechoslovakia and the mountains of Bohemia; now it is heading for Dachau near Munich. Suddenly, incredibly, singing can be heard from one of the cars; it is Francis of Assisi's Canticle of Brother Sun! "All praise be yours, my Lord, through all that you have made, and first my lord Brother Sun All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Earth, our mother."

What can such a song mean in circumstances like these? The men who sang were hardly more than ghosts themselves, surrounded by the dead! What was going on in 'this railroad car?

April 7, evening: Night has fallen, the train rolls on. In what direction? We do not know. One thing is certain: we are on our way ninety to a hundred men in each car, crouching, crushed against one another, a fellow prisoner between one's legs, like skeletons packed one upon another. The horrible nightmare is beginning. (Could we possibly have thought at that moment that it would last, not three, four, or even five days, but twenty-one days and twenty-one nights?)

No room to stretch out a leg. And we are so exhausted! And so full of despair, too!

This very morning, we were still in Buchenwald, waiting for a liberation that seemed very near. We had waited all through the winter, amid hunger and cold, hard work, and death. Many had died. At last, we had survived all that. Then, suddenly, liberation was at hand. It had lifted its head only a few miles away, as real and as powerful as the spring sun that had defeated the long winter. From the hilltop at Buchenwald we could see the flames from the mouths of the American guns. It was

only a matter of days now, perhaps even of hours. The cannon were thundering, and hope was leaping in our hearts.

But the SS decided to evacuate a section of the camp. Several columns of prisoners had already set out, under heavy guard on the preceding days. Today it was our turn. With death in our hearts, we walked the few miles from the heights of Buchenwald to the station at Weimar. We were tuming our back on hope, this long column of four to five thousand condemned men. Really, we were no longer among the living. Some comrades, their strength drained away, fell during the march, and the SS put a bullet through their heads. In some spots, the path was spattered with blood and brains.

At Weimar station, they put us on board.

Now we are rolling onward into the unknown. Two SS guards to each car. Some cars are covered; others, like ours, still black from coal dust, are open to the sky. A few comrades were able to bring a blanket; luck for them, since the nights are still cold in Germany at this time of the year when winter is barely over. A deathly silence reigns among us. Rocked by the swaying of the train, we sink into a boundless sadness.

Next morning, Sunday, April 8: We stop at a small station. The train stands there all day, then all night. We are forbidden to stand up, even to restore circulation to our legs. We are forced to remain crouching, day after day. For food, a few potatoes and a bit of bread; nothing hot, of course. Meanwhile, a very cold fog descends.

There are people from all over Europe among the hundreds or so packed into our car. From all social classes, too. Most are between twenty and thirty years old, but all look like very old men. Some know why they were arrested and deported: they were part of a resistance movement. Others are there simply because they were caught in a random sweep in Paris or Warsaw or some other city. But we speak as little as possible of such matters. In extreme wretchedness such as this, what is there to know about a man except the suffering that now fills his being? Here the suffering is limitless and everyone shares it. All differences fade away in the face of the common destiny. Lost in this mass of men, there are five of us who are sons of St. Francis.

Monday, April 9: The train starts moving again shortly before noon. While we are under way, the SS relax their vigilance. We take advantage of this to stand for a moment and take a look at the countryside through which we are passing. During the afternoon the train stops in the extensive suburbs of Leipzig, and the SS have those who have died during the journey brought out of the cars. These are quickly and unceremoniously buried beside the track. During the night and throughout Tuesday morning, we continue on eastward. We travel along the Elbe for a while and are only about thirty miles from Dresden. But now the train turns southward.

At this time the SS were probably intending to take us to the concentration camp at Flossenburg in the Oberpfalzer Wald on the Czechoslovakian frontier. For reasons unknown to us they had to drop this idea.

Wednesday morning, April 10: We are at Pilsen in Czechoslovakia. Groups of Czechs immediately gather along the tracks. They are deeply moved at the sight of our striped garments and skeletal figures. They begin to throw bread to us. The SS men fire a few shots at them. The train rolls on slowly and passes under a bridge in the city. Some people who have gathered on the bridge drop food into the cars. We knock each other over trying to get a morsel of bread. More than ever, we are forbidden to stand up, but our hunger is too strong to resist. The train stops at a little station in the countryside, not far from Pilsen. There we are shunted to a siding.

In the evening, they give us a little food: one ration-loaf of bread for ten men. The day ends with the departure of the dead whose number increases each day. The corpses are no long buried beside the track. The corpses are hardly more than skeletons now; they are seized by the arms and legs, shoved upwards, and tipped over into the car.

Next morning, Thursday, April 11: The train stands all day in this little station. In the evening, the dead are removed; nothing else happens all day long. The same thing the next day; we spend all day without food, and in the evening they remove the dead. Life is tragically simplified for us now. We have only one occupation to fill our time: watching others die, while we ourselves wait for death. On the average, two

men died each day in each car; that means about a hundred deaths a day for the whole train.

These days spent motionless seem endless to us. But the nights bring a further torment. Alongside the dying, who are at their last gasp, some of the living fight for a bit of space in which to sleep; others go mad and pound their heads against the sides of the car in order to finish their nightmare. Over us, an SS man rains down blows with a club in order to restore quiet. But even all this is not the worst. The terrible, awful thing is to find oneself watching for a neighbor to die and telling oneself that tomorrow there will be more room to stretch out in.

During the night between Friday and Saturday, attempts are made to escape from several cars. This act of despair will cost all of us dear. In the morning, a SS officer climbs into our cars and fires into the mass of prisoners. Two of our comrades are hit; they will spend a long time dying.

Only on Monday, April 16, does the train set out again. We have the impression the SS do not know what to do with us and will be forced to kill us all. But the weather is marvellous. Everything is a call to life: over our heads, a wide blue sky; the larks tumble about up there, drunk on the freedom of space; in the fields men and women are working at the harvest; yonder a few small churches lift up their steeples. The train stops again at evening, on a plateau. Once again we wait, face to face with death. There we are, completely cut off from everything that is going on in the world. Where are the Allies? What is happening in France just now? These big questions seem irrelevant to us now. For many of us, it is already too late.

During the night between Tuesday and Wednesday, the train starts up again. It travels toward the south-east. Now we are entering the mountains of Bohemia. The scene is full of grandeur. From the floor of our car we can watch the forests on the upper slopes. The new light-green foliage of the birches stands out against the dark green of the giant firs. Here and there the gold of flowering bloom catches the eye. Spring is bursting out. Nature, ignorant of what men are doing to each other,

continues to produce greenery and flowers once again. From the moist warm earth the sun draws the good smells of a forest in the spring.

In some places the slopes narrow into a rocky, precipitous ravine. Our train with its five thousand condemned men moves slowly through these wild ravines. The idea comes to us that we have been brought there for some barbaric celebration. Then suddenly, fear. Above our heads, over the side of the car appears "the killer," an SS officer. We have called him that because he has already killed several among us. He stares at us the way a bird of prey stares at a nestful of creatures he is going to kill. His rifle is pointed at us; the monster fires into the heap of men. Two comrades are now dying. One has been shot in the mouth. We are all spattered with blood. A terrible anxiety grips body and soul. There can be no doubt now, we feel our hearts jumping wildly, like a bird that has been mortally wounded and flutters around in its own blood, unwilling to die.

We have been travelling all day. This evening the train has halted in a little station at the edge of the Bohmerwald. The railroad bridge across the Danube at Passau has just been cut. We are forced to stay there on a siding several days, six to be exact. Long, terrible days. To crown our wretchedness, the good weather is followed by rain. It falls, cold and steady, for three days and three nights. We are paralysed by the cold. There is nothing hot for us to eat. Some of us, coming back from removing the dead, have managed to pick up some pieces of wood and a few bricks along the track. On the bricks we light a fire in the car. It's really more of a ghost of a fire. We crowd around it to get dry and warm, but the flame is too weak. Besides, skeletons can't get warm. Most of these days pass without any food at all being given to us, and we must be satisfied with a few dandelions hastily picked beside the track as we return from fatigue duty with the dead.

The dead! There are more and more of them. Many of our comrades die of dysentery; many of exhaustion. Others have contracted erysipelas and are the most horrible spectacle of all. Within a night or a day, these men become unrecognisable; their swollen fiery faces are completely distorted. Delirious with fever, these unfortunates fill the night with their yelling; they scream for water, but in vain. In the

morning, their bodies lie stiff in death. Sometimes the corpses remain in the car throughout the day, washed by the pools of water that have formed here and there on the flooring.

These extremities of suffering plunge us into acute anxiety. It is no longer simply the anxiety that grips any living thing as death approaches. Amid our terrible distress there arises in us a strange feeling that eats away at those inmost certainties which till now had sustained us. We have a growing impression that we have been handed over to some blind, savage power. There we are, thousands of men abandoned to hunger, cold, vermin, and death. The human being is completely crushed. Man, whom we had till now believed was made in God's image, now seems laughable: worthless, helpless, hopeless; a being caught up in a whirlwind of forces that play with him, or rather, pay absolutely no attention to him. Among the corpses that lie in the water of the car, eyes turned back, is a companion or a friend. Everything we can see, every experience we must undergo, tells us we are in the grip of an iron law, handed over to the play of blind forces and that this, and this alone, is reality.

Reality where the Father has no place! Experience that once in your life, and you will never again speak lightly of the "death of God." It is an atrocious experience. When the Father is absent, the Son is in agony. The Son's agony is always due to the Father's silence, the Father's absence. And where can the least sign of the Father be found in this hell? Now we understand the words, "My soul is sorrowful enough to die."

Black night fills our souls. And yet, on the morning of April 26 when one of us is in his last moments and the light has almost left his eyes, what rises from our hearts to our lips is not a cry of despair or rebellion, but a song, a song of praise: Francis of Assisi's Canticle of Brother Sun! Nor do we have to force ourselves to sing it. It rises spontaneously out of our darkness and nakedness, as though it were the only language fit for such a moment.

What brings us in such circumstances to praise God for and through the great cosmic brotherhood? Theories have no place in our utter confusion of spirit; they offer no

shelter against the storm. The only thing that remains and is priceless in our eyes is the patience and friendship this or that comrade shows you. Such an act by someone who, like yourself, is immersed in suffering and anxiety, is a ray of light that falls miraculously into the wretched darkness that envelops us. It re-creates you, makes you a human being once again. Suddenly we learn all over again that we are men. And when such an act of friendly help has been done to you, you in turn are able to do it for another and thus respond to the reign of brute force with a freedom and love that bear witness to another kind of reality...

At such a moment, astounding though it seems, we experience wonder before the world; we experience the sacred in the world. Such an experience is possible only in extreme deprivation of soul and body. Only in utter distress and need can we fully appreciate a mouthful of bread, a sip of water, a ray of sunlight, and now and then, like a visitor from another world, the warm greeting of a passer-by The tiny drops of rain that tremble on the telephone wires in the evening light after a storm are filled, to the selfless eye, with boundless innocence. And the broad rain-washed heaven shows us how luminous, how pure it is! All these lowly things that we can contemplate from the floor of our car are not the result of passing chance. They speak sweetly to the soul.

Where do they come from, this purity and innocence that suddenly lay hold of us through these humble realities? Whence the limpid radiance that bathes the world but is perceptible only amid extreme poverty? How innocent things are. Do you smile? Yet this experience can be matched by no other. Nietzsche said: "One must ... have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star." We certainly have not been spared chaos. Devastation is everywhere, around us and within us. History has swept like a cyclone across our lives. And yet, over this heap of ruins, there now shines "the great evening star of poverty."

Because this vision was given to us, we were able, on an April morning somewhere in Germany, to gather round our dying brother and sing of the sun and the stars, the wind and the water, the fire and the earth, and also of "those who grant pardon for love of you." "When he died, so light as to be nameless," there was no flight of larks

overhead, but a supernatural peace had filled our hearts. That evening we carried his body away, accompanied by blows from the SS who felt we were not moving quickly enough. His was the last death in our car.

How was it possible for these people to find meaning, to find joy, to find peace and to find love in their hearts in the midst of the deepest hell, the blackest suffering? What was the embedded spirit of these Franciscan brothers that came to the surface in their song of the creatures? How did they come to view themselves and their relationship with their world and with God at the moment of the cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

GRATITUDE FLOWING FROM A CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE OF INTERCESSION

As we struggle to grasp the magnificence of this reality, a joy begins to well up within us; a joy springing from a deep sense of gratitude that will affect our relationship with each of our fellow man and woman and every creature on this earth (….Let everything that breaths praise Him. Alleluia! Ps.150). Sin no longer takes centre place to be the ‘full cause and effect’ for the Incarnation, but the wonder of the Incarnation in itself becomes the magnificent gift of Love, the centrepiece from which, and to which all creations returns. Would sin hold our God ransom and become the prime motive for the greatest event in human history. In the wonderful words of our Brother, Eric Doyle OFM, “Why build the Taj Mahal to cover a pothole.”

The traditional barrier between science and theology, or faith and reason have in recent years been eroded so that the latest ‘String Theory’ or ‘Theory of Everything’ would almost come to support the Franciscan view of creation, although for many scientist the jump to the proof of God will require another paradigm shift.

What are the consequences of coming to an acceptance of such ‘relatedness’ of all creation, an extension of the inherent dignity, not only of the human family but also of the created cosmos? It appears to me that up to now, the old religious emphasis on the dignity of the human person in the image of God, with all ‘lower’ creation having the sole purpose and function to serve the needs of humanity is not only in total contradiction to the Franciscan understanding of Sisterhood and Brotherhood, but has virtually condoned the rape of our Mother Earth. This understanding of domination of creation for man’s needs most often feeds a greed for wealth, power and domination over our fellow man and woman.

How can the Franciscan Family play its role as Intercessors and in contributing to the Church and to the world through striving to live in contemplative relationship to God and to all creation as sisters and brothers?

Let me quote from SFO documentation:

For nearly 800 years the Franciscan Family – Secular and Religious members –have constituted one of the largest official ecclesiastic Faith-communities in the Church. Publicly professing the Gospel as their common Rule of Life, committing themselves to live it out in both Secular and religious modes according to their specific vocations, this world-wide community of men and women has tried to be faithful to the call of Francis of Assisi which they inherited, namely, to “GO, REBUILD MY CHURCH” in every age.

This is where, I believe, the Franciscan Family in this country as in all the world, through the witness of our Fraternity, can give people hope through the respect we show for the dignity of all peoples of whatever race, tribe, creed or political affiliation. A respect for the dignity of diversity of all creation. To build peace and reconciliation based on our Brother/Sisterhood. Inserting ourselves into the society as our Gospel project.

Let [the brothers] not be angry, for “whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgement And whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council. And whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.” And let them love one another, as the Lord says: “This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you.” And let them show their love by the works they do for each other, according as the Apostle says: “let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.” Let them “speak evil of no man,” nor murmur, nor detract others, for it is written: “Whisperers and detractors are hateful to God.” And let them be “gentle, showing all mildness toward all men (sic).” Let them not judge and not condemn, and, as the Lord says, let them not pay attention to the least sins of others, but rather let them recount their own in the bitterness of their soul. (FIRST RULE OF THE FRIARS MINOR Par 11)