FERNANDEZ
That as I am wracked with doubt that you are even there at all, I will never lose sight of the wisdom in believing in you, exactly as the ages and my own parents had taught me; that the more I doubt, the more I should argue in favor of faith such as my mother Consuelo told it me: “It cannot hurt. It can only make you better.”
That I will be blessed with the joy of faith though I have no proof of you to show for myself, or my children, or my neighbors, whom you have commanded me to love as I would love myself; let the joy of my believing and my love be for them worthy to consider; let my joy in believing be enough proof I need to believe you are there.
That every time I am taken by fear, I will always search out and clarify for myself what makes me afraid; for there are many fears which are inevitable, some fears which can neither be prevented nor helped and some fears which are not there at all.
Especially, help me never to fear what I do not and cannot know. You said to your followers, “Do not be afraid.” Fear is there that we may learn to defeat it, not to be defeated by it, and succumb to hatred, anger, and violence. Rather, that we should meet our fears with wisdom and understanding.
For there are people who preach a priesthood of fear, hatred, anger, and violence, who would say to us: “This is how things have always been and how things will always be. This is the only way to make the world better.”
Give me the wisdom to see the comic absurdity of this claim. Give me the humor to laugh in the face of it, that no matter what hellish world full of fear, hate, anger, and violence, their claim will lead us to, we never lose sight of the truth that their world will never stay the same way for too long.
The waning of their hell leads us inevitably to a world reborn. For there are things which endure far longer than these.
Give us the grace to see how tolerance and goodness endure far longer than fear, hate, anger and violence. That despite everything, there are things that never go away though they may seem hidden at times. For even as we find ourselves in a world led by those who are made stupid by their greed and hatefulness, there will always be those who remain steadfast in their goodness and love for others. Help us to care especially for those who are most victimized by greed and hatefulness.
Give us hope that this world will ultimately get better, even if it seems clear it will get worse first. For all these are the inevitable tidal turning of our lives and the universe itself, the same tidal turning of us, being right or wrong, being joyful or sad, being alive eventually to die in the end. Give me the grace to come to an understanding of the true nature of life that I may come to accept and not fear suffering and death.
Give me the understanding to see how and why death is impossible for those who believe in you inside your goodness and their knowledge of the true nature of the universe. For though each one of us will die in this life, we can choose now what we leave behind with our lives. Every act of goodness we ever make, every act of faith, persists and goes on into time in the lives of our children and all we leave behind. For the universe you made for us is a world of waves and particles endlessly moving in time and space, where every act leads always to other acts, and every act is recorded like endless ripples in the fabric of time and space. They can never be erased. Nor can ever be erased every particle or person’s past in the fabric of truth itself. It will always be there by your will and wisdom.
Give me the courage to accept this as sufficient reason for every good act I have ever done or will ever do in your endless time.