A Prayer for Uvalde

Memorial Church Steeple

Our hearts are breaking. The murders in Uvalde yesterday are unconscionable. When we think of the deaths of these children and their teachers, when we think of the brutal grief of these families, when we think of the wounded and traumatized members of that community, we are filled with sadness and despair.

Jesus asked the children to come into his embrace. With bitter regret, we pray that these fallen children now will do so. We pray the impossible: comfort for their families. But we also pray that no other children or families will suffer the same. We pray that we as a nation will somehow learn to hold children safely in our embrace, that we will protect their lives and futures before all else.

We pray God’s mercy for failing to do so. We pray God’s strength to end the awful, national habit of these horrors.

 

Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Ph.D. '13
Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church
Plummer Professor of Christian Morals
Faculty of Divinity