A Prayer of St. Nikolai Velimirovic

Bless my enemies, O Lord.

Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Enemies have driven me into Your embrace more than friends have.

Friends have bound me to earth, enemies have loosed me from earth and have demolished
all my aspirations in the world.

Enemies have made me a stranger in worldly realms and an extraneous inhabitant of the world.

Just as a hunted animal finds safer shelter than an unhunted animal does,

so have I, persecuted by enemies, found the safest sanctuary,

having ensconced myself beneath Your tabernacle, where neither friends nor enemies can slay my soul.

Bless my enemies, O Lord.

Even I bless them and do not curse them.

They, rather than I, have confessed my sins before the world.
They have punished me, whenever I have hesitated to punish myself
They have tormented me, whenever I have tried to flee torments.
They have scolded me, whenever I have flattered myself
They have spat upon me, whenever I have filled myself with arrogance.
Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Whenever I have made myself wise, they have called me foolish.
Whenever I have made myself mighty, they have mocked me as though I were a dwarf.
Whenever I have wanted to lead people, they have shoved me into the background.
Whenever I have rushed to enrich myself, they have prevented me with an iron hand.
Whenever I thought that I would sleep peacefully, they have wakened me from sleep.
Whenever I have tried to build a home for a long and tranquil life, they have demolished it and driven me out.
Truly, enemies have cut me loose from the world and have stretched out my hands to the hem of Your garment.

Bless my enemies, O Lord.

Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Bless them and multiply them; multiply them and make them even more bitterly against me:
so that my fleeing to You may have no return;
so that all hope in men may be scattered like cobwebs;
so that absolute serenity may begin to reign in my soul;
so that my heart may become the grave of my two evil twins: arrogance and anger;
so that I might amass all my treasure in heaven;
ah, so that I may for once be freed from self-deception, which has entangled me in the dreadful web of illusory life.

Enemies have taught me to know what hardly anyone knows,

that a person has no enemies in the world except himself.

One hates his enemies only when he fails to realize that they are not enemies, but cruel friends.

It is truly difficult for me to say who has done me more good and who has done me more evil in the world: friends or enemies.

Therefore bless, O Lord, both my friends and my enemies.

A slave curses enemies, for he does not understand.

But a son blesses them, for he understands.

For a son knows that his enemies cannot touch his life.

Therefore he freely steps among them and prays to God for them.

Bless my enemies, O Lord.

Even I bless them and do not curse them.

(St. Nikolai Velimirovic, was a Twentieth Century Serbian Orthodox bishop who opposed Nazism and was
eventually taken to Dachau. In this prayer he no doubt has in mind personal enemies, rather than national ones; the prayer is not intended as a guide for political and military decisions. But in thinking through such words we may be more able to act justly rather than rashly and in hatred or bloodlust. This prayer is included in my new book, "The Illumined Heart."---Frederica Mathewes-Green)

Restore the Circle of Humanity

Holy God,

judge us as only you can,

with scouring truth

and rinsing encouragement,

for, left to ourselves,

we are anxiously condemning

or angrily defensive.

By your mercy restore

the circle of humanity

we have broken

by our acts and attitudes

of exclusion and indifference,

our homophobia and faithless biases,

our mindless competitiveness,

our niceness at the cost of honestly,

our pretenses that distance us,

our fear of guileless intimacy,

our hypocrisy in blaming and ignoring

the victims of injustice,

our timid collusion in the unraveling

of community and the spiraling down

of our common society into the pursuit

of merely personal, private, even pious goals.

God of our noblest dreams and deepest hopes,

restore in us clean hearts,

right minds, a glad resolve

to help remold the soul of our time,

to rejoin the private lives of each of us

to the public life of all of us

and the promise of your kingdom.

By your canny power,

pressure us not to compromise our integrity into duplicity

our passion into passivity,

our creativity into conformity,

our compassion into indifference,

our conscience into cynicism,

that we neither betray

the deepest longing of our humanity

for the bondage of seductive false security,

nor forsake the audacity of our faith

for the conformity of juiceless trivial pursuits.

So, by your grace, shall we be mercifully set free

to join with you in healing the broken heart

and broken circle of your human family,

and find our lives stretched to joyful proportions

by the stunning grace of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

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