The Sunday Journal Greetings and a warm welcome to all.

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake. Amen. (BCP, p 124).

Recently I went to the Episcopal Church web page to check on the latest news from Haiti, and at the top of the “Home” page was the prayer above. This is the same prayer I used when I was the on-call chaplain at the hospital, and I gave the closing prayer in the evening over the loud speaker. It not only served to give a blessing to the end of the day, but when the visitors heard the prayer at 8:30, they knew it was time to go home, and leave their loved ones to the care of the doctors, nurses, and staff. I love this prayer. It seems to define our needs in the face of life’s uncertainties.
I was filled with gratitude when I saw the prayer on our Episcopal Church web site; gratitude that our church cares about what happens to others all over the world, especially now in Haiti. We have a spiritual bond with our brothers and sisters there, and we are reassured of our connectedness as ONE  in the powerful words of Paul to the Corinthians: “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” It is hard to read, or even begin to comprehend the pain and suffering in Haiti at this time. The temptation is to throw away the newspaper or turn off the television and not to google the web news; but that would be burying our heads in the sand and doing nothing. In our Gospel today, Jesus tells us clearly that is not the way he intends to respond to pain and suffering, and, since we are one with him in baptism, neither are we. We are to pray and to discern how, when, and where God wants to use us to serve the people of Haiti and any others who suffer throughout the world.
Our Episcopal Church has a long history of running full force ahead to help those in need. This tradition of reaching out is at the core of our theology: unity in love and unity in the mission of compassion to serve others in Christ. May we never let the secular world’s distractions divert us from the mission to serve others in Christ,  and may we never lose sight of the call to us in Paul’s words, “Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”
I also discovered on our Episcopal Church web site the above prayer in Creole. I offer to you the cry of our brothers and sisters in Haiti in their own language:
Bondye, kontinye siveyans la avek tout moun kap travay, kap siveye oubyen kap kriye tout lan nuit, epi bay zanj yo pouwa pou veye sak ap domi. Bondye lan ciel, Bay sak malad laguerizon, bay sak fatige yo repos wa, beni tout saki pral mouri, kalme sak ap soufri, pran pitye pou saki tracase, proteje saki binere ansam ak tout lot pitit ou yo. Amen. (Livprye komen, p. 124)

La Paix,
Deedie+