Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has called for a season of prayer for regions of the Anglican Communion which are experiencing violence and civil strife: “In this season of Resurrection, I call on everyone to pray for our brothers and sisters in areas where there is much burden and little hope.”
Bishop Skip’s reflection on Presiding Bishop Curry’s call to prayer follows.
Dear People of God in Central New York,
I encourage you take very seriously Presiding Bishop Curry’s call to prayer this Eastertide. Any way you can incorporate this call into the life of your parish or faith community can be a significant way in which we respond as Christians to the destruction, fear and anxiety swirling around us.
One might ask, what good will prayer do in the context of the horrors of Belgium and Pakistan? I believe with all of my being that prayer changes things. I do not mean this is any magical or superstitious way as if we can get God to do something God is not already going to do or be present more fully than God already is present. I do find, however, that prayer changes me, the one who prays. When it changes me, it can change the world, bit by bit.
When I pray I become centered and am reminded once again of who I truly am as God’s own. I remember who God calls me to be and in prayer I remember from what place I want to act. It reminds me of my best self, or to put it another way, my higher angels.
I have said this before and I will say it again. One of the most radical things we can do is pray. Prayer in God’s Spirit will call us into the world, into God’s neighborhood, to be a presence of love that in the end defeats death and participates in God’s vision for the world. Prayer calls us to trust in the One who is risen from the dead and know deeply that the last enemy, death, has been defeated.
So please pray. It is who we are and what we do.
Blessings and love to all in these Great Fifty Days,
+Skip
