Twenty-Third

Our prayer for the Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lord, God, you have appointed your disciples as watchman for your house. Watchman, of course, you meant as protectors, but my pop-culture saturated mind immediately leans towards super-heroes and the question: Who Watches the Watchmen?

Their are differences between disciples and super-heroes, of course. The good guys are called to action. The god guys are called towards singing joyfully, bowing down in worship, and kneeling before the Lord who made us.

We are called to reiterate Your words, not our own, in speaking warning to others, reminding them of faults, first, between us and them alone.

But this is not our prime directive, our first initiative. That would be Your command that "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Super-heroes seem to resort to violence, disciples do not. Love does no evil to the neighbor; Disciples are not called to violence in any form- physical, emotional, spiritual. Blood has already been spilled, Lord, Your sacrifice is enough.

You, Lord, are the watcher of the watchmen. Lord, help us to harden not your hearts to stones of persecution of others. Help us today to hear Your voice.

D. Scott Miller

D. Scott Miller is the dean of Catholic Youth Ministry bloggers which is a polite way of either saying that he is just plain old or has been blogging for a long time (since 2004.)

Scott recently married the lovely Anne and together they have five adult young people and also grandparent three delightful kids (so, maybe he is just plain old!) Scott presently serves at Saint John the Evangelist in Columbia, MD as the director of youth and young adult ministry.

He has previously served on the parish, regional, diocesan, and national levels as well as having taught within a catholic high school. He is one of the founders of RebuildMyChurch and has returned to posting regularly (keeping regular is important to old guys) at ProjectYM.