In praying the Liturgy of the Hours on Ash Wednesday, specifically Morning Prayer, the prayer began with the hymn, “Creator of the Earth and Skies.” This is the text of the hymn:
“Creator of the earth and skies,
to whom the words of life belong,
Grant us your truth to make us wise;
Grant us our power to make us strong.
Like theirs of old, our life is death,
Our light is darkness,
till we see the eternal Word made flesh and breath,
The God who walked by Galilee.
We have not known thee:
to the skies our monuments of folly soar,
And all our self-wrought miseries
Have made us trust ourselves the more.
We have not loved thee:
far and wide the wreckage of our hatred spreads,
And evils wrought by human pride
Recoil on unrepentant heads.
For this, our foolish confidence,
Our pride of knowledge and our sin,
We come to you in penitence;
In us the work of grace begin.”
I have been reflecting on the text of this hymn since Ash Wednesday morning. How well it applies to much of what has happened in human history. How sadly it comments on the present state of our United States. In terms of present policies and presidential orders affecting immigration, taxation, foreign policy, healthcare, the attacks on the important safety nets for our elderly, our poor, the hungry of our nation, all of it is based on human folly and greed. From the White House, and the halls of Congress, from the State Houses and the corporate board rooms, from the mansions of the rich to the homes and hovels of the poor, from the naves of mighty cathedrals and TV evangelists to the store front churches, we all be need be dressed in sackcloth and ashes.
