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An examination of Archbishop Rowan
Williams’ vision of contemporary ministry
Litany of Mercy
Here, among family and friends
and before God we are aware of the work-stale glances of those we
encounter, of the quickly averted eyes of strangers, of the anticipated
scrutiny of those we have yet to meet, of the assessing gaze of our
employers carried around in our head, and of our own anxious self-regard.
Let us pray to the Lord, saying...
Lord, as you look on us as you looked
on Peter, have mercy.
 What difference would it have made if we
had let ourselves believe that, beyond all these, we are held in a wholly
loving gaze?
Lord, as you look on us as you looked
on Peter, have mercy.
What difference would it have made if we
believed ourselves subject to a gaze which saw all our surface accidents
and arrangements, all our inner habits and inheritances, all our anxieties
and arrogances, all our history -- and yet a gaze which nevertheless loved
that whole tangled bundle which makes us the self we are, with an utterly
free, utterly selfless love?
Lord, as you look on us as you looked
on Peter, have mercy.
What difference would it have made if we
let ourselves believe that we were held in a loving gaze that saw all the
twists and distortions of our messy selves, all the harm that we can do
and have done, but also saw all that we could become, all that we could
give to others, and all that we could receive?
Lord, as you look on us as you looked
on Peter, have mercy.
What difference would it have made if we
had seen each face around us in the week we have just lived -- cleaners,
businessmen, emigrants and immigrants, waitresses, nurses and teachers,
those agéd and alone and those unemployed and retired
-- as individually
held in the same overwhelming, loving gaze?
Lord, as you look on us as you looked
on Peter, have mercy.
What difference would it have made if we
believed each person around us to be loved with the same focus, by a love
which saw each person’s unique
history, unique problems, unique capacity, unique gift?
Lord, as you look on us as you looked
on Peter, have mercy.
What difference would it have made if we
believed that this love nevertheless made no distinctions between people
more worthy and people less worthy of love, no distinctions of race,
religion, age, innocence, strength, or beauty: a lavish and indiscriminate
love?
Lord, as you look on us as you looked
on Peter, have mercy.
Such unfettered acceptance would be
utterly disarming; to believe such good news, such a Gospel, would have
been very, very difficult.
Lord, as you look on us as you looked
on Peter, have mercy.
Adapted from Difficult Gospel by Mike Higton, page 1f. |
