What they’re doing to the Mormons is a national crime. It’s wrong. It’s done in all our names, and we’re all guilty. Texas may be violating human rights, but the nation is supposed to protect against such things, under the Constitution. And it is the “homeland security” mentality that has brought this to be.

They’ve rounded up all the families of a particular religious group and separated children from parent and parents from children, and jailed the children in a coloseum, and the parents elsewhere. Then they presume to run DNA tests on everyone to decide whether, if, and who has “custody” rights. They’re getting away with persecuting a few, with little outcry from us, because of the sensationalized abuses of the even fewer. And the search for the “anonymous callers” bears striking resemblance to the search for “weapons of mass destruction.”

And we are letting this happen, because those people live sufficiently differently from us. It’s no different than the bigotry that justifies bombing “gooks”, “towel heads”, and others who are not like us.

May God punish the nation for this. May he chastize her for her arrogance. May he make the valleys smoke for her disobedience and because she has torn the suckling babe from its mothers breast, and stolen the daughters and sons of her people. I’ll gladly go down, in my unworthiness, if the Lord will but sink this ship with me.

Come quickly with the fire and make things clean.

To you who read this:

May the Lord answer in time of trial;
may the name of Jacob’s God protect you.

May he send you help from his shrine
and give you support from Zion.
May he remember all your offerings
and receive your sacrifice with favor.

May he give you your heart’s desire
and fulfill every one of your plans.
May we ring out our joy at your victory
and rejoice in the name of our God.
May the Lord grant all your prayers.

I am sure now that the Lord
will give victory to his anointed,
will reply from his holy heaven
with the mighty victory of his hand.

Some trust in chariots or horses,
but we in the name of the Lord.
They will collapse and fall,
but we shall hold and stand firm.

Give victory to the king, O Lord,
give answer on the day we call.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen

- Psalm 19 Greek (20 Hebrew). -

“Although by katchi abadi standards, Grax is better than many others, the village has many social, physical and civic deprivations. During one of our visits, the community health worker expressed concern about a girl who appeared ‘mentally disturbed’. She lived about a mile from the centre. We went to visit her at her house.

A small cordoned-off area with two small rooms, a small area for the kitchen and a toilet with open drains constituted the ‘house’ of 75 square yards, perhaps a little more. The father of the girl was unemployed, the elder brother suffering from some sort of ‘mental imbalance’. A number of semi-clad children were milling about — presumably brothers and sisters. Their only source of income was a buffalo.

The health worker was right. The girl did appear unwell, “for the past three years,” her mother told us, “since the birth of her son”. He died a month after being born. The girl talked to imaginary voices, was frightened of others, and laughed to herself. She had run out of the house many times. Unable to afford medicines or have her treated on a regular basis, the family kept her tied to a tree. The result: badly infected wounds with pus and blood oozing out from both ankles.

Long abandoned by her husband — older than her by many years — she now lay on straw matting in the corner of one of the two small rooms, oblivious to her surroundings. She appeared not to have had a wash in weeks. I tried to engage her in conversation but she looked past me, and I was unable to penetrate her secret world. I asked the mother the girl’s age. “Fifteen…,” she said; the words echoed in my ears.” — [Dawn]

Mercy, light, peace, deliverance for the unnamed child.

St. Arsenios of Cappadocia used the Psalms for blessings, especially when there was no prescribed blessing for a particular occasion. Essentially, he arranged his psalter as a book of needs. For Psalm (Septuagint) 105 (KJV 106), it is suggested as a prayer for this purpose: “So that God gives illumination to people so that they do not move away from the way to salvation.” In short, it is a profound prayer against ecumenism. Let us say it aloud in full, petitioning the Lord:  [here it is]

Your prayers are asked for Eunice Cherotich (she is someone I care about in Kenya), for the Kenyan Orthodox Church, and for all Kenyans, especially the poor, the orphan, and the widow. Immense numbers of small and micro-business are burned to the ground, thousands of orphans are on the street, there are many refugees and families who have lost their providers, their beloved, and their livelihoods and homes, and people are in dire need. If you do not know what to pray, please think of these and pray [this psalm].

and bless Thine Inheritance, granting to the Faithful victory over all adversaries. Reader, pray, I pray you, for the Orthodox and all people in Kenya. We cannot let this be another Rwanda. See: [Full Story]

Deliver the kidnapped, the enslaved, and the wrongly imprisoned.
Rescue the missing and the lost.
Deliver the innocent and the suffering.
Provide for the poor and protect the helpless and the weak.
Comfort the solitary, the broken, and abandoned.
Heal the sick and dying.
Expose the murderer and the rapist and the kidnapper and the exploiter.
On all men have mercy, and by their prayers save me a sinner.
And come quickly, O Lord.Grant that I may be made worthy and ready with St. Photius the Great, St. Maximus the Confessor, and St. Mark of Ephesus to suffer for Orthodoxy banishment, imprisonment, and excommunication at the hands of even my brethren.

Let me never be wealthier than I am, that I might not fall into Hell.

Lord, I am a sinful man. Teach me in others and in silence. Speak not directly to me, lest I swell with pride and, forgetting the pit I am in, fall into a deeper one.

Keep me from prelest. Let me not see visions of Angels or of Thee; the words of Saints are enough for me.

Deliver me from pride, the slayer of my soul.

My heart is breaking. Refashion my heart.