I have been praying with these words from theologian Walter Bruegemann, from an earlier election:

Post-Electiom Day

You creator God
who has ordered us
in families and communities,
in clans and tribes,
in states and nations.

You creator God
who enacts your governance
in ways overt and
in ways hidden.
You exercise your will for
peace and for justice and for freedom.

We give you thanks for the peaceable order of
our nation and for the chance of choosing—
all the manipulative money notwithstanding.

We pray now for new governance
that your will and purpose may prevail,
that our leaders may have a sense
of justice and goodness,
that we as citizens may care about the
public face of your purpose.

We pray in the name of Jesus who was executed
by the authorities.

Amen

His prayer, found in his 2008 book Prayers for a Privileged People, is evergreen. He passed away in 2025.

I have also been praying these days with words of another holy soul, also in heaven. At a commencement speech in the 1970s at Xavier High School in NYC, Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan had this powerful and brief message for the students.

He walked to the podium declared “Know where you stand and stand there.” Then he sat down.

Berrigan and Brugemann are now advocates on the other side, reunited with our loving God.

We are here, now, in this time and space, where humans are harming other humans. Our cruel and unjust immigration system is still in place. Weapons are manufactured and deployed against civilian populations. Poverty abounds as wealth is accumulated by the few and even fewer.

We are here now, in this time and space, where humans are helping other humans. Providing mutual aid and support, voting for the common good, stepping up and speaking out.

On the day after the mid-terms, our American Pope continued his weekly catechesis on
Gaudium et Spes, the social doctrine
document of the Second Vatican
Council at his General Audience in Rome. He reflected:

“The political community exists for the
sake of the common good … The exercise of political authority must always be directed towards the common good, which must be structured and operate according to local and historical circumstances, but always with the good of the entire human family at heart.   …

Dear friends, engaging in economic and political life in accordance with these criteria is a way of building peace. As Pope Francis recalled, ‘war is a failure of politics and of humanity, a shameful capitulation, a stinging defeat before the forces of evil.’ On the contrary, politics that tends to the wounds of peoples and of those who suffer injustice offers grounds for hope for the future of humanity.”

That these words were spoken the day after our historic midterms, in which he exercised his own right and responsibility as a citizen to vote, is significant.

Voting is key, and so is the daily exercise of our responsibilities as members of the human family and children of God to serve the common good. The path ahead is long, as is the arc toward justice and peace. We must be in this for the long haul.

I choose to stand with and on the side of those who are suffering injustice. I choose to love. Always. I choose to live in hope. To be peaceful and kind. To speak truth (in love) to power, knowing what this cost our brother Jesus.

We know what God asks of us. To act justly, lovs tenderly, and walk humbly with our God. (Micah 6:8)