Urgent heart thread - 3.10.2008

I'm calling a prayer meeting right now.

All the usual people and issues still need prayer, of course. (See today's earlier thread.)

However, right now....

Jonathan (Mad Priest) has this on his mind:

My father, John, is in Oxford at this moment in time, to undergo surgery to have a tumour removed from his brain. My mother, Fiona, is staying with a clergy friend of mine, in Oxford, so she can visit him everyday. There's a slim chance of irreparable brain damage being sustained during the operation. I am confident that the combined prayers of the combined religions (and none) of the OCICBW... community can prevent that from happening.

Furthermore, a heated debate about liturgical style and issues of dominance-submission and idolatry (or not) has gotten quite out of hand at OCICBW. Tempers have flared, feelings have been hurt, umbrage has been taken, and snits have ensued.

MP and GM are in rupture.

TELP has written a very sensible comment ending with this:

Remember this: I love every last one of you in this neighborhood.

I think that is why so many of us are in pain right now. We love and therefore we hurt with our friends.

Mimi has expressed herself in a poem titled "I've lost a friend."

None of us wants to see this happening.

Doxy also asks for prayer for her friend Miguel who will be having surgery for prostate cancer soon.

So.

Get on your knees, folks, or light your candles, or whip out your prayer beads, or center, or have a chat with Saint Jude Thaddaeus, or chant, or storm the gates of heaven, or just have a little talk with Jesus, or get outdoors and have a nice walking meditation, or sprinkle prayer tobacco or corn pollen. Whatever.

Holy Week is coming up soon. Church types tend to get crazy this time of year. We have lots of external and internal anxieties weighing down our hearts. We all have multiple responsibilities and are easily overwhelmed.

Time to come before the Cross and let go.

Thanks.

UPDATE:
We have a progress report on Jonathan's dad:

My father is awake from his operation which seems to have been very successful. He suffered no seizures, which was the main worry due to the location of the tumour and he is speaking - albeit just to say "I feel bloody awful."

The tumour although fast growing, was benign , so everyone has high hopes that this is the end of this worrying episode.

Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
--Collect for Good Friday

--the BB