Pray
Archangel Michael's woodcut by Tamara Pérèz Llàcer, student from Foyer Michaël in 2018.
"What would we still be ready to die for?" »This is the title of a book by Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine published in March 2017. It is a question that does not leave you alone: what directs my life? Does my life make sense? Is it really addicted to something? I can always delude myself when all is well. But it is only when there is danger of death that I can measure the "for what" of my life. Our western societies are sprawled in consumption, leisure and material comfort. And behind it, there is like a big void: an existential abyss. Yet every human being needs to "burn" for something. Otherwise it is the human who dies out in men. If the individual does not manage to give himself a real direction, a superior sense for which he can surpass himself, this leads as much to a sort of "depressive" softening as to explosive violence and all forms of totalitarianism. “Dear jihadists, the West ends in Bermuda shorts (…) Fear the wrath of the man in Bermuda shorts. "Philippe Muray tells us ironically ...
It was while browsing the first pages of Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine's book that I came across this prayer, found in 1938, in the pocket of André Zirnheld, a paratrooper who died in the Cyrenaica desert, in Libya , while he was on a mission for free France. This prayer has michael accents. Archangel Saint-Michel is also the patron of paratroopers. One can imagine the immense courage of one who, braving death, must throw himself into the void, sometimes right in the middle of the battlefield, without knowing exactly what and who will fall. Some soldiers readily evoke a passage from the Apocalypse: "There was a silence in the sky when the Archangel Michael fought the dragon". This silence still marks the soldiers as soon as their parachute opens…
Lucien Defeche
“I am speaking to you, my God
Because you give what you can only get from yourself.
Give me, my God, what you have left,
Give me what you are never asked for.
I do not ask you for rest, nor tranquility,
Neither that of the soul, nor that of the body.
I'm not asking you for wealth,
Neither success, nor even health.
All this, my God, we ask you so much,
That you shouldn't have any more!
Give me, my God, what you have left,
Give me what you are denied.
I want insecurity and worry
I want the turmoil and the fight,
And you give them to me, my God,
Definitely.
That i'm sure i always have them
'Cause I won't always have the courage
To ask you for them.
Give me, my God, what you have left,
Give me what others don't want,
But also give me courage,
And strength and faith.
Because you are the only one to give
What you can only get from yourself. “
This prayer touched us. We hear a real call to awakening and inner courage there. The courage not to flee, to face our trials, and to live our lives fully, with all the worries and confrontations that this entails. So we wanted to share it with you at the start of the year 2020.
Lucien Defèche and James della Negra