A Prayer for the US

There’re a lot of things messed up about Paraguay: corruption in the current government basically prevents any major national economic development; a lack of security means you have to build high fences around your house and always be ready at a moment’s notice to give out your cell phone or wallet to an armed attacker; and the average Paraguayan family is broken beyond imagination and irreparably hurt by marital infidelity, alcoholism, and general lack of male responsibility.

Although I see so many evil things resulting from sin in the Paraguayan people, though, there is one great and perhaps greatest evil of which, thank God, they are entirely innocent. It is an evil that has been prevented at every level of society by what many consider to be an outdated, archaic, and stale Catholic society. Still, it is an evil that, because of the Roman Catholic Church’s influence, has largely been avoided and is, in any case, a Paraguayan social stigma punishable by many years in prison if found out. Sadly, however, it is also this greatest evil to which my own foundationally Protestant and “more advanced” United States have succumbed. This great evil, eschewed by Paraguay but embraced by the United States in the Holocaust of our generation, is abortion, the intentional murder of pre-born children.

Paraguayans, most of whom are nominally Catholic, at least get this one thing right: they understand that abortion is an atrocious sin, abhorrent before God and intolerable in society. And their country is blessed because they believe it. Paraguayans are a fruitful people, and they are growing fast. New human life sprouts from every corner here, and demographic studies show that half of the now nearly-six million Paraguayans are under the age of twenty. In the United States over the past twenty-some years, on the other hand, we’ve murdered nearly seven times the number of Paraguay’s entire population in children before they were even born, and we are now faced with the crisis and curse of a declining native population.

It literally makes me sick to think how many people my age never had the chance to breathe because of legalized abortion. In the words of Saint James, I “am wretched, mourn and weep” for my nation. I see that although we have plenty of money, power, and “civilization,” we lack the greatest thing of life itself, and oftentimes we even allow that to be taken away from those who are least able to defend themselves. Yes, we find our rights, liberties, and freedoms in the United States, but we also find our hands stained with the blood of millions of innocents.

I believe that soon we shall reap the consequences for our sins. We cannot cheat God forever, because one day He “shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered; and those who hate him shall flee before him” and “in the hand of the Lord there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.”

For that reason, this Fourth of July I pray, Lord, have mercy. Forgive our nation for the atrocities we have committed in selfishness and the innocent lives we have taken in cold blood. Christ, have mercy. Free us from our self-seeking lives to live in your Life, being able and willing to love You and our neighbor, from the greatest and most powerful to the smallest and most defenseless. Lord, have mercy. Give our leaders the grace of repentance and the strength of will to turn our nation away from its massacre of innocents to a society that recognizes the divine blessing of human life and the value of every person created in the image of God. We pray this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns together with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever, Amen.