PRAYING FOR PEACE, PRAYING FOR HEALING
Send forth your light and your fidelity; they shall lead me on and bring me to your holy mountain, to your dwelling-place. -Psalm 43:4
For my current mission, I am studying Ignatian Spirituality in Spain. Living on this side of the Atlantic has given me a new perspective. More recently, the war and assault on Ukraine seems to be literally hitting closer to home. There is not an ocean to separate me from this experience or to lessen painful images of people desperately fleeing their homes, Ukrainian citizens attempting to fight for their freedom, or some confused Russian soldiers trying to make sense of their own role in this aggression.
In my community, I live with a Russian Jesuit preparing for his priestly ordination that is officially scheduled later on this summer in Moscow. Yet, he is stuck in more ways than one. Because of the political situation, it is difficult for Russians abroad to return back home, and so he does not know how he can return home, let alone get ordained. In today’s Gospel, the saying “no prophet is accepted in his native place” takes on a personal sentiment. Looking at my Jesuit brother’s face, I can see the pain he feels for being associated with a country, whose leader originated this horrific war, the heartache he feels for many of the Ukrainian refugees fighting for their lives and fellow Ukrainian Jesuits attempting to minister to them, and the concern he feels for so many of his family and friends’ safety as they try and negotiate this uncomfortable and violent space they are intimately experiencing.
In the first reading from the second book of Kings, Naaman, a skillful commander to the king of Aram, is sick with leprosy. The Arameans raided a portion of the Israelite kingdom, which now makes them enemies of Israel. Namaan’s servant, an Israelite, tells him that her God has the power to cure his ailment. After sending an offering to the king of Israel, he sends Naaman Elisha, the prophet. Namaan is expecting Elisha, the prophet, to do a complicated ritual to cure him. Instead, he is told to wash in the river, and when he does his leprosy is cured. As a result, Namaan, a gentile, proclaims that the God of Israel is the one true God. What converted this aggressor? Healing. God could have punished Namaan for attacking Israel. Instead, God uses Naaman’s desire for healing to not only physically cure him, but spiritually convert his heart as well. While it is easy to seek and desire the demise of our aggressors, it is much more difficult to pray for their healing. As the situation with Ukraine continues to unfold, let us not only pray for peace, but let us pray for healing. Naaman shows us that when we experience healing for both the wounded and the aggressors, our hearts are more open to reconciliation and conversion.
How is God calling us to be instruments of reconciliation? How can we be agents of healing and peace?
Alex Llanera, SJ