Healing Prayer Corner: COVID-19 and George Floyd

The killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis has opened again deep wounds in our nation. Tragedies have followed tragedy as violence has spread all over the country. And this on top of over 100,000 deaths from COVID-19, with no end in sight.

In a prophetic column written by Jim Wallis, editor-in-chief of “Sojourners,” in response to the COVID-19 death toll, he says: “It is a marker we must not pass by quickly or easily. We must stop. We must weep. We must mourn. We must honor. And we must lament, which is to feel and bear great grief and sorrow, and reflect upon it.” And find hope in the second Beatitude: “Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4).

What Wallis continues to say applies not only to the pandemic, but to the death of George Floyd. “To lament means more than weeping and mourning; it also includes regret – to ask why this happened, to understand that it didn’t have to be this way, that we could have been better, smarter, fairer, more compassionate and just.”

What must we do? As the Lord said to Moses in today’s First Reading, the Lord is “a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” To such a God, we must pray. But without mourning and lamenting, our prayer might be artificial.

There is more. We must be “better, smarter, fairer, more compassionate and just.” And we must demand that of our leaders. Otherwise, we might not be more than what Moses said to the Lord of the Israelites: “This is indeed a stiff-necked people.”