Leadership Team of the Dominican Sisters ~ Grand Rapids
November 6, 2024
Many are wondering how to process the results of Tuesday’s national election. It is appropriate to begin with prayer, even when words elude us. St. Paul’s letter to the Romans states, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” (Romans 8:26).
Considering this election climate and outcome, now is a time to engage the ancient tradition of lamentation to which Father Bryan Massingale called us during the 2024 LCWR Assembly.
We recognize there is an array of feelings surfacing. Some of us are okay and maybe even rejoicing with the election results; but many, many of us are hurting, scared, angry, dismayed, mystified, and rightly concerned for the futures of women and girls, of our nation, of our neighbors near and far, and of the planet. In many ways, there are no words to express the pain of this moment. We must grieve, we must wail, we must cry and cry out, we must lament that which is before us — a return to the old, to isolationism, to fearmongering and division.
Father Bryan said, we “must be a solidarity in grief, in loss, in lament as we live in this age of exponential change…”. It is only then that we will be able to continue to embrace the work to which we are all called – the mission of Jesus – and to respond to the needs of those who are poor, alone, outcast, refugees, infirm, or imprisoned. It is our cry against that which is not right in our world that will lead us to continue to work for justice and to pray that peace may prevail for all.
