Having just celebrated All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days, let’s remember in a special way those who lost their lives to gun violence.  As wars rage around the world and soldiers are in our own cities, we are called to choose the path of peace.  Here is a prayer from Education for Justice, a project of the Ignatian Solidarity Network:

We pray in the spirit of the Psalms:  We are in distress, we are in anguish.  Our tears are bitter as once again the lives you have created are disrespected, destroyed, because of fear, of hate, of refusal to see the others as part of oneself, because weapons are more common than compassion, than solidarity.

We pray for the dead, for their families and friends in grief.  We pray for the living.  May the healing begin, for the wounded, for all those in the frantic crowd, for the local communities, for this nation, in distress, in anguish.

We pray that we may begin to see the violence end and peace be with us all. Amen.