A
female
age
30-35,
Annalisa
writes:I sit in contemplation before the Crucifix in my bed-room, having just changed the sheets and tydied up. I plod along a life of financial restrictions, forced to stay at home, because the work I used to do didn't pay enough for childcare. Thoughts of an unfulfilled sex-life pass through my mind, along with thoughts of my baby, memories of clubbing with friends and travelling the world with my now overworked husband.Really, for every trouble we have a blessing.But my thoughts are dragged in another direction by the face of Jesus, His eyes painfully cast towards His perforated hands.They say Christianity is the easy way out, say a Hail Mary and your conscience is at rest, your place in Heaven assured and nothing needs trouble you...But that Man on the Cross doesn't look calm, He's in pain!I think of my ancestors... Being Italian, my ancestry crosses Romans with Jews. I wander how many of my ancestors have might have ended up on crosses just like That One, forced in line by the Romans, brutally beaten and tortured because of their beliefs.I glanced at an article just the other day, that reminded me of the death of St John, the favourite and youngest apostle, who died an old man... tortured to death by being immerged in boiling oil. He was an old man! What kind of creature treats an old man like that?!These days, it doesn't get very much easyer, being a Christian:in Africa and China Christians are forced into hiding, forbidden to attend churches, put to death for praying to their God.A Muslim friend of mine, who fell in love with a relative of mine, told me of rules in Somalia where, if a woman is found to sleep with a man, unmarried, or in love with a Christian, she is shunned by society and can even be put to death by stoning!And people still lough in our face, when we say we believe in satan, that we need God's protection against the devil!What makes people so inhumane, then?Fundamentally, all monoteistic religions believe in the same god, so why can we not respect each other? Religion isn't the problem, people are! People who hide behind society, who accuse and torture each other because they need to feel righteous about themselves.Why can't we stop for a moment, contemplate the Face of our Lord in the child who is forced to starve, by war and greed; in the prisoners who found no way in life other than crime, because noone showed them a better way; in the elderly who are abandoned to themselves, throughout the western world;in the unborn children who are aborted, having taken away from them the opportunity to make this world a better place;in each and everyone of us who needs consolation and support through our troubles and fears.I look at Your Hands, my Lord, bleeding love, stretched out ready to hug me, and I think of the pain you felt, the shame, the sorrow and I beg You, let everyone remember that pain, which is relieved every day around the world, and teach us compassion and to thank You for the joys in our lives!Amen.
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female
reader, mandy7 + ♥, writes (17 April 2008):
 That was beautifull it brought a tear to my eye and pulled at my heart you are so right thankyou for sharing your lovely thoughts WITH LOVE AND PRAYERS MANDY XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
A
female
reader, birdynumnums  + ♥, writes (15 April 2008):
 What a lovely prayer. The world needs more like it! God Bless!
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