Prayer for Relief

Prayer of the Afflicted

To all those who hurt. All the women about to be stoned, to the prison guards who assault God’s children-

Good Lord above
Holy Father
Compassionate and merciful God
God who created the heavens and the earth
Look down upon your handiworks
See the tear streaked faces of your children
Look at the helplessness of the suffering-

Who sees the tears wept in secret places?
Who hears the moans of the broken bodies,
Tossed like so many broken bags of sacks into forlorn dungeons?
Who can measure how deep the heart of the abused sinks
Dropping like a stone into the depths of the cold waters of fear
When the metal tipped shoes of the guards
ring down the dark and long corridors?

How can yesterday’s ripped-out tongue pray another prayer?

When men set upon their mother’s, their daughters, their pregnant wives,
Matchets hacking away
Flesh flying, gore saturating the dust
till the very earth itself vomits out human blood in revulsion,
Soil becoming miry and death is a welcome relief.
Who mourns more than You?
We are your children, your handiwork, your pride-

Look at us!
Have mercy heavenly Father
This is not your will.
Let your will be done,
Let some light shine love into this dry and heaving hearts
Please God. Be not far removed
You whose eye roams all the earth-

How long will you wait, dearest Father?
How long?
Where is the relief that only you can offer ?
Where is your love Lord Jesus that must fill the hearts of these maniacs?
When madness grips the mind
Turning men into maniacs
Demented afflicted afflicting
Shrieking fiendishly, eyes bulging, hands tearing-

O, Son of Man, how much longer?

The weak have no refuge,
The innocent find no justice
In this earth that you created, your garden
This piece of but a speck in the vastness of the universe
That you reedemed with the Blood of your Son
Another day, another drama of blood
Another desperate soul letting loose from deep within into the emptiness
Silent wails, pleas, prayers, groanings beyond pain-

How much more blood?
When will this rivers of blood, blood of the innocent,
Cease flowing?
When will the agony of the weak suffice
to suffuse this fires of dread consuming,scorching flesh-

We beg you, Jehovah of Hosts
We pray for mercy
We can’t take it any longer
Send forth your Son
To come set the prisoners free
Fulfilling the promise you assured will come
Our mouths are filled with the ashes of dread
Our suffering-

When shall relief come for the weak
Who are caught, ensnared in another man’s nightmare?
So far removed from the lines of relief, yet you live in us.
When relief is sought through gruesome death
Yet, even life you have made appealing
Father in Heaven, God on earth, Lord Jesus
Look at your masterpiece being slashed into thin ribbons
Of flailing wailing flesh-

Where is hope when hopelessness is an end
Where is succour
to the patched throats that are bleeding from crying to the Lord?
Who slacks the thirst of the mouth
that lacks the mouth to drink the cool waters refreshing
after beatings that have taken every teeth and made the flesh a mush
Can we ever be humans again?-

How much more pain?
How much more horrors?
How many more babies torn from the wombs of tired mothers?
Babies kicked straight from one tired womb to another tired womb.
How much more head in the sand attitude?
How much can we show you, Father,
That we are not capable of anything without you?-

We are sorry, beloved Father, we really are
For the sins of the Fathers,
For failing you all these years.
The whole sorry lot of us
Living this falsity of borrowed joy
When even the stones on our fingers are dripping blood,
When injustice made that we feel we are entitled to
Can we forget to pray; “Father, Let thy Kingdom Come?”-

Can you?
Can you forget the forgotten?
Can you feel human knowing what humans do to other humans?
Do you feel proud of the blessings of intellect wasted on humanity
Bacause humanity has denied its heritage to love others like themselves
Do you blame God, when God is weeping at your iniquities?
Why? Oh God in Heaven, Why?
God in us, please, show us mercy-