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Here in Brasil the month of the Bible has come to an end. During the month street groups and communities studied and prayed the Book of Jonah. There was many a laugh in these small groups as we read and shared how Jonah tried to escape from God and from his mission. The author(s) of this wonderful story was very clever. The lessons about accepting the stranger, not judging nor excluding anyone, finding God in everyone and every place were taught through this wonderful parable. Some people had great difficulty in hearing that it wasnīt a historic fact but that there is a bit of Jonah in us all! What lengths do we go to escape Godīs call? Have we never said īso-and so would do a better jobī, `why me?` The fifth and last meeting had as its objective īdevelop an attitude of compassion and mercy in relation to those around us especially those of our community, so that together we may witness the merciful presence of God in our midst`.
This group walked kilometers to pray in the house of Dita, a blind lady
PRAYER AT THE CRIB
Mine be the soul that cradles every Christ -
the child that clings to shrivelled breast,
the broken, the abused
the homeless turned away from shuttered inn
the foreigner, confused.
The poor whose only sin
is poverty
the veiled and hunted women of the dunes
the desperate ones
the multitudes in flight
across a starless desert into night.
The fear on haunted faces
wrecked and writhing
in ten thousand different places
the rash, the ruthless, in shackles that enmesh
- mine be the heart in which this Christ takes flesh.
And may there be
somehow, somewhere, some kind Nativity.
Maria Mackey OP