Cathedral Connects

God of all mercies, we pray for the health and well-being of former President Trump. Keep him safe, protect the innocent, comfort those who mourn and those who were injured, and guard all those who serve our nation, including the brave members of the Secret Service.     

Our prayers today are with our brothers and sisters in Baltimore following the devastating collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, and for the families who now seek to rebuild their lives after the loss of their loved ones.

Our prayers today are with the family of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, a pioneering jurist and a cherished friend of this Cathedral who is now at rest with all the saints in glory.  

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." Matthew 5:9

This violence grieves the very heart of God, and God weeps for the people of Israel. The blood that now soaks the sacred ground of the Holy Land gives root to little more than the seeds of bitterness, hatred and retribution. 

Twenty score and seven years ago, the founders of this nation set forth on a grand experiment in democracy, fueled by the promising ideals of equality and justice for all. As Americans, we have wrestled, argued, voted and even died in the struggle to expand that same equality and justice to include all of God’s children. 

Whenever a group of people is facing oppression, there's a temptation to see it as their problem to fix: Racism is a problem for Blacks, homophobia is a problem for the LGBTQ+ community, antisemitism is a problem for Jews.    

On this Transgender Day of Visibility, we’re thinking of writer James Baldwin, who in 1967 sketched out a dream of a world where people have the courage to “create ourselves without finding it necessary to create an enemy.”

Jesus said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” Here in America, awash in firearms and an epidemic of mental illness, too often it’s the little children who suffer.  

Our prayers today are with the family of former Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold III, who entered into eternal rest earlier today.