Compassion Not Cruelty

🙏🏾 The Lord’s Prayer, A First Nation Translation

O Great Spirit, our Father from above, we honor your name as sacred and holy. Bring your good road to us, where the beauty of your ways in the spirit-world above is reflected in the earth below.

Provide for us day by day–the elk, the buffalo, and the salmon. The corn, the squash & the wild rice. All the things we need for each day.

Release us from the things we have done wrong, in the same way we release others for the things done wrong to us.

Guide us away from the things that tempt us to stray from your good road, and set us free from the evil one and his worthless ways.

Aho! May it be so!

First Nations Version:
An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament
Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2021
👉🏾 More info & Purchase a copy: https://ow.ly/M3v550ZWMQu

👉🏾 Submit your prayer to the People's Prayers for Peace initiative: https://ow.ly/Bf0e50ZWMQv

Today is Indigenous Peoples' Day!

"Give thanks for Indigenous communities that have lived in the Americas and other parts of the world for thousands of years. Pray that we will not overlook them in our telling of history and that we will honor our church’s commitment to repentance, reconciliation, healing, respect and unity as children of God." —Prayer Ventures

Today, on Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we honor the history, cultures, and ongoing leadership of Indigenous peoples. We recognize that Indigenous communities are not simply part of our nation's past. They are living, thriving communities continuing to defend their sovereignty, protect their lands, and shape their futures.

Honoring Indigenous peoples requires more than acknowledging historical injustices. It means confronting the lasting harms of colonization, challenging efforts to erase Indigenous histories, and standing alongside Native communities in their struggles for justice and self-determination.

As people of faith committed to justice, we believe solidarity must move beyond words and into action. Indigenous sovereignty, dignity, and liberation are not negotiable.

🕯️From this week's prayer liturgy: mfsaweb.org/candle

This week, we light the Candle of Peace, Hope, and Justice for Christa Pike and all those who face capital punishment at the hands of the government on death row. The State of Tennessee sentenced Christa to death for a crime she committed when she was 18 years old. Last week, after two failed lethal injections, Christa was intubated and put on a ventilator in a Nashville hospital. Her attorneys have reported that she has since regained consciousness.

We remember that our Savior was executed by the state. Jesus’s resurrection is a rejection of everything the cross represented. The death penalty is an affront to Jesus’s teachings of mercy and redemption. We know that almost all people facing capital punishment are poor, and a disproportionate amount are people of color. We ask God’s guidance in confronting these injustices.

God of mercy, we ask that you strengthen our convictions so that we may stand with all who are imprisoned and to resist the temptation of retributive justice. Help us to remember that no one is beyond the grace or love of God. Help us to reaffirm the dignity of every person, remembering that every person on death row was created in your image. Embolden us to take action to protect our neighbors facing capital punishment. We pray for Christa’s recovery and for her future, and we ask you to draw near to her and all of your children who face ex*****on at the hands of our government.

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of War announced that the firing squad ex*****on of Nidal Hasan, the man convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 at Fort Hood, Texas in 2009, would be publicly livestreamed. Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued the following statement sharply condemning the decision of the U.S. government:

“It is with shock and great sorrow that I have learned of the Department of War’s decision to publicly livestream the ex*****on of Nidal Hasan. Our God is the God of life. In no way can Hassan’s actions be condoned but this decision is a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered. The word of God exhorts us: ‘do not repay anyone evil for evil' (Romans 12:17). The public ex*****on even of one who has done grave harm will only further undermine the moral fabric of our nation and be a blight on the conscience of its people.

“I pray for the intercession of Our Lady of Good Counsel that we as a nation may always choose life even in the most trying times and circumstances.”

More than 103,000 letters have already gone to Congress. We need yours too, before a single child is locked up at England Airpark.

In Alexandria, Louisiana, officials have signed a contract to turn former military barracks into a 528-bed detention facility for children and families. The groundwater at that former Air Force base has contained extraordinarily high levels of toxic PFAS "forever chemicals."

It would be one more piece of a system that keeps growing.

In less than 14 months of President Trump's second term, ICE has detained more than 6,200 children, including at least 500 babies and toddlers. More than 1,600 were held past the court-set 20-day limit. On an average day, ICE now holds nearly 10 times as many children as it did in the final year of the previous administration.

Faith leaders and neighbors in Alexandria have packed board meeting after board meeting to stop this. As local pastor Leigh Rachal said, "Nobody wants children to be detained."

Jesus welcomed children, blessed them, and placed them at the center of his ministry. A nation that claims to value children does not lock them in cages.

Members of Congress have the legal authority to walk into ICE facilities unannounced, inspect conditions, and demand accountability. That power is worthless if they don't use it.

103,631 people of faith have already told their senators and representatives to inspect every facility holding children and families and to use every oversight and funding tool they have to end child detention. Add your voice at the link in comments.