Day: October 4, 2017

04Oct

Prayer of Saint Francis

A prayer attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi, whose feast day is celebrated today:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let us sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is discord, union;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

04Oct

Massacre in Las Vegas

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and victims of the recent tragic shootings at a country music festival in Las Vegas.

Updates are available at all news outlets. Tales of ordinary people acting in heroic ways are beginning to emerge. Business Insider profiles some of them, and they warm the heart. They include a woman with paramedic experience named Dawn-Marie Gray, who tended to the injured and dying:

Dawn-Marie, who worked as a paramedic for about seven years, knew that local paramedics would not be admitted entry until the area was deemed safe. She and her husband turned to the wounded, providing CPR, making tourniquets, and checking for pulses on lifeless bodies.

The couple worked together to load victims into cars en route to the hospital.

“It had nothing to do with being a hero,” Dawn-Marie said. “That’s being a human being.”