An Act of Attention
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Director’s Reflection
Dear Companions on the Journey,
Two Things, First:
I came across this prayer by former editor of Catholic Digest Richard Reece. In the line of an “Act of Faith,” he calls it an “Act of Attention”:
Lord, in this world of so many messages, I feel overwhelmed.
Sometimes I barely hear your voice amid the clamor of today’s discouraging news.
In what can seem unrelenting darkness, I strain to see your light.
Help me each day to pay attention:
to notice which words, pictures, and attitudes are forming me.
Give me the grace to use my ears to hear you, my eyes to see you.
Grant me the courage to challenge falsehood, to distinguish honesty from hypocrisy, to see goodness where it lives, and to overcome world-weariness and despair. Amen.
Second:
The clergy sexual abuse crisis admits of many dimensions, the most important of which is the voice of the survivor. Here at the Paulist Center, we paid attention to that voice by way of Michael Mack’s very moving performances of “Conversations with My Molester: A Journey of Faith.” Another dimension of this crisis is the effort to blame gay priests for the scandal (“After all,” they say, “look at how many of the victims were male”). To address the scapegoating of gay priests for this terrible scandal in our Church, we are delighted to welcome well-known writer Andrew Sullivan to address this issue on Tuesday, February 26th, 7pm in the Chapel. Come with an open mind and heart to be informed and to be challenged.
What do you think?
And let us pray for/with one another.
Michael
The Paulist Center