….FOR JUSTICE
TAKE A MINUTE TO MEDITATE TODAY
SATURDAY
On January 20, 1968, I was shot and paralyzed from my mid-chest down during my second tour of duty in Vietnam. It is a date that I can never forget, a day that was to change my life forever. Each year as the anniversary of my wounding in the war approached I would become extremely restless, experiencing terrible bouts of insomnia, depression, anxiety attacks and horrifying nightmares. I dreaded that day and what it represented, always fearing that the terrible trauma of my wounding might repeat itself all over again. It was a difficult day for me for decades, and it remained that way until finally the anxiety, the nightmares, began to subside.
As I now contemplate another January 20th, I cannot help but think of the young men and women who have been wounded in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have been coming home now for years to Walter Reed, Bethesda, Brooke Army Medical Center and veteran hospitals all across the country. Paraplegics, amputees, burn victims, the blinded and maimed, shocked and stunned, the brain damaged and psychologically stressed. A whole new generation of severely maimed is returning home, young men and women who were not even born when I came home wounded to the Bronx Veterans Hospital in 1968.
The physical and psychological battles from these wars will rage on for decades deeply impacting the lives of citizens on both sides. I have now discovered in many ways my injury in the Vietnam war has been a blessing in disguise. I have been given the opportunity to move through that dark night of the soul to a new shore, to gain understanding: a knowledge and an entirely different vision.
I now believe that I have suffered for a reason and in many ways I have found that reason – in my commitment to work for peace through non-violence, through love. We who have witnessed the obscenity of war and experienced its horror and terrible consequences have an obligation to rise above our pain and suffering and turn the tragedy of our lives into triumph. I have come to believe that there is nothing in the lives of human beings more terrifying than war and nothing more important than for those of us who’ve experienced it to share its awful truth, to condemn war. We must break this cycle of violence; begin to move in a different direction. War is not the answer. Violence is not the solution. A more peaceful world is possible, but only through love.
- Ron Kovic
_______________________________________________________________
PRAYER FOR SOCIAL
JUSTICE
Lord Jesus, Carpenter and King, supreme Sovereign of
all, look with tender mercy upon the multitudes of our day who bear the
indignities of injustice everywhere.
Raise up leaders in every land dedic
Grant unto us, Lord Jesus, the grace to be worthy
members of Your Mystical Body, laboring unceasingly to fulfill our voc
Guide
our minds to a meaningful understanding of the problems of the poor, of
the oppressed, of the unemployed, of all in need of assistance anywhere.
Guide our hearts against the subtle lure of earthly
things and undue regard for those who possess them.
May we hunger and thirst after justice always.
Amen.