This Week's Prayer

Dear love, which calls us to respond,

How shall we respond?

On Wednesday, 14 people were shot dead in San Bernardino, at a center for people with developmental disabilities. It was the second mass shooting of the day. We didn’t hear so much about the gunman in Savannah, Georgia who shot four, killing one.

The Friday before a gunman killed an officer and two others at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs.

What does it mean to pray for the victims and their families? That we take this moment to hold them in our thoughts, in our hearts. As the Daily News pointed out, God isn’t fixing this. It’s up to us to do that.

So as we prayer for the victims, we also pray for ourselves. That we may have the fortitude to demand action. To raise our voices to insist that civilian ownership of combat rifles and certain kinds of ammunition need not be allowed.

We pray for anger that prevents complacency when, one day after the San Bernardino murders, the Senate voted down a measure that would have made it more difficult for people on the terror watch list, felons, and the mentally ill to buy guns.

We pray that our attention and righteous anger may be directed where it needs to be: at elected leaders in thrall to the money and political power of an industry dedicated to profiting from spread of assault weapons.