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Winter 2023-2024
It is cold. It has been cold here in the Piedmont of North Carolina for several weeks. We were forecast snow for today, but we managed to luck out again. I am impatiently waiting for Spring.
Gardening right now mainly consists of planning. We are hoping to open another section of vegetables in the area where we had the poplar tree. Our planning includes ways to hopefully thwart our resident groundhog from eating our zucchini vines again this year.
As usual, life continues on here at the Hermitage. Our routine of Morning and Evening Prayer each day with Mass on Sundays, Wednesdays and major Holy Days gives each week a sense of continuity.
Each day it seems like the news brings more accounts of violence, both here in our country and across the world. Extreme party politics are rendering Congress totally ineffective. We appear to be continually perched on the brim of a government fiscal crisis.
There seems no end to the Ukranian war and the Israeli Hamas war with the destruction and death of thousands, even tens of thousands, of human lives. “Collateral damage,” isn’t that what those that have been killed, wounded or maimed are called?
Where is God in all of this? I don’t know. These are times that try all men’s faith. But these times are exactly a time where we must have faith, faith that God is still in control.
All of us, as Christians and especially those of us Religious Brothers and Sisters, should continue with every ounce of our beings to try to bring peace to this violent world. We should avoid petty politics and the polarization that is gripping our nation, ethnically, politically and economically.
O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love our enemies: Lead us all, we pray thee, from prejudice to truth; deliver us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in thy good time enable each of us to stand reconciled before thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Won’t you join with us and pray for peace.
+Peter COS
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