Praying for Peace and Justice on July 26, 2026
Pray, please, with me: Holy One, I come in my weakness in search of these words of love and peace you have placed in my deepest self. Let me reach that place of peace and love and raise them to action. Help me to share love and peace with my family, my friends and neighbors and our communities. Amen
Background
The last months including those in 2025 and 7 months of 2026 have been a struggle for me. It was easy to feel defeated, even though I know that holding love and hope are the best to have in these challenging times. This past week, Richard Rohr, from the Center for Action and Contemplation gave the morning meditation to the writings of Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jewish woman, 29 years old when murdered in Auschwitz in 1943. The Center’s Meditation was titled “A Commitment to Life.”
There I found the challenge to my weakness. Hillesum writes “Why is there a war? Because I and my neighbor and everyone else do not have enough love. Yet we could fight war and all its excrescences by releasing each day, the love that is shackled inside us and giving it a chance to live.”
The meditation closes with her reflection on Matthew 6:34 not to worry about tomorrow, she writes:
“We have to fight them daily … those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies…. The things that have to be done, must be done, and for the rest we cannot allow ourselves to become infested with thousands of petty fears and worries, so many motions of no confidence in God…. Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.”