In honor of National Catholic Sisters Week, Fran Gorsuch, a Sister of Bon Secours, and Natalie Scarbrough, led a prayer for peace for our staff on Monday. The Crocus Prayer was read allowed as we gathered in a circle around a Peace Pole, reminding us all that offering peace or being activists of peace often takes courage. Let’s contemplate the actions of these first flowers today.
Crocus Prayer
It takes courage
to be crocus-minded.
Lord, I’d rather wait until June,
like wise roses,
when the hazards of winter are safely behind,
and I’m expected,
and everything’s ready for roses.
But crocuses?
Highly irregular,
Knifing up through hard-frozen ground and snow,
sticking their necks out,
because they believe in spring
and have something personal
and emphatic to say about it.
Lord, I am by nature rose-minded,
Even when I have studied the situation here
and know there are wrongs that need righting,
affirmations that need stating,
and know also that my speaking out may offend –
for it rocks the boat –
well I’d rather wait until June.
Maybe later things will work themselves out,
and we won’t have to make an issue of it.
Lord, forgive,
Wrongs don’t work themselves out.
Injustices and inequities and hurt don’t
just dissolve.
Somebody has to stick her neck out,
somebody who cares enough
to think through
and work through hard ground,
because she believes
and has something personal
and emphatic to say about it.
Me, Lord? Crocus-minded?
Could it be that there are things that need
to be said, and you want me to say them?
I pray for courage. Amen.
~Jo Carr and Imogene Sorley