Norwegian Terror Attacks: Let's Stop Pontificating and Start Praying

By -

 (photo by Jan Johannessen, AFP/Getty Images / July 23, 2011 )
Vi sørger med deg, Norge. (We grieve with thee, Norway.)
Kan dine barn hvile i fred. (May thy children rest in peace.)B
By Allison Salerno
If our family's experience over the last 10 years is any guide, I urge you to pray for Norway, the land of the midnight sun. They are suffering from the worst violence in their land since World War II. Stop pontificating. Pray for the souls of the departed, pray for their families, pray for those who survived these attacks too. Believe me, their lives will forever be altered by this violence.

I'm the wife of a man who narrowly escaped Tower One of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2011. He and his colleagues climbed down the stairs from the 68th floor within 11 minutes of the tower falling. We did not find our comfort in politicians or pundits or bloggers.

Comments

  1. Manny10:52 pm, July 23, 2011

    My prayers go out. What a tragedy. It's so hard to imagine that one man alone could have done all this. God bless the victums. May they be in God's heart.

    ReplyDelete
  2. EC Gefroh1:36 am, July 24, 2011

    Praying Allison!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Fr Seán Coyle3:54 am, July 24, 2011

    I celebrated two Masses this morning here in BAcolod City, Philippines, each with a mainly young congregation. We prayed for all the victims at each Mass. May they rest in peace.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Allison11:10 pm, July 24, 2011

    That is beautiful, Father Sean.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SAINT ELIZABETH, MOTHER OF JOHN THE BAPTIST- Feast: November 5

By -
Image
Elizabeth appears in the Gospel of Luke, where she is described as “righteous in the eyes of God, observing all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly,”.  I imagine that she was warm, loving and obviously a safe harbour for young Mary, who was not married when she conceived.  When Mary came to visit her, Elizabeth was pregnant with St. John the Baptist and in her sixth month: “Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And how have I deserved that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, the moment that the sound of thy greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who has believed, because the things promised her by the Lord shall be accomplished.” 
Read more

The Memorare

By Helen Gonsalves -
Image
This popular prayer, a favorite of many Catholics, dates back to the 15th century and takes its name from the first Latin word of the prayer, "memorare," which means "remember." The Memorare is of unknown authorship, although it has been attributed to St. Augustine (354-430), St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) and, with more reason, to St. Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090-1153). St. Bernard's sermons on Mary were famous, and it was his Cistercian monks in the monastery of Citeaux in the 12th century who popularized the name "Our Lady" for Mary. The Memorare has also been attributed to the French cleric Claude Bernard (1588-1641), known as the "poor priest" of Paris, whose homilies contain passages that echo its words. No matter who wrote this prayer, it was Father Bernard who did much to popularize it, teaching it in hospitals and prisons, where Mary's intercession was effective in working miracles of grace. The first manuscript of the Mem...
Read more

'Greater Love: Richie Fernando SJ', a joy-filled Filipino missionary

By -
Image
 I haven't been able to post for more than a week as I was giving an eight-day directed retreat to eight sisters of the Missionaries of Charity near Manila. While I had some access to the internet it was rather slow. I had intended to make a post here on the murder of Fr Fausto Tentorio PIME , a 59-year-old Italian priest, in the Diocese of Kidapawan, Mindanao, on Monday 17 October. I will save that post for a later date. As I was looking for a video about Father Fausto I came across one about Brother Richard Michael 'Richie' Fernando SJ, a Filipino Jesuit scholastic who died while trying to prevent a troubled and disabled young man in Cambodia from throwing a grenade. That was in 1996 - on 17 October. Father Fausto gave his life exactly 15 years later. I remember the mixture of sorrow and pride I felt when I read of the death of Brother Richie, pride as a missionary in the Philippines that a young Filipino seminarian had given his life so spontaneously in order to sav...
Read more