Dear God,
We do not constantly realize how frail we are, depending as we do on Your Divine Providence sustaining our lives at every step. Though intellectually we may know these truths, we do not always feel them emotionally.
Periodic events do shake us out of the natural complacency that causes us take so many things for granted: our health, our daily sustenance, our satisfying activities, our quality of life along with its comforts.
We so wish, however, that such events not be incomprehensible tragedies but rather small-scale reminders.
We are so grieved by the 7,500 lives recently lost in Nepal’s tremendous earthquake, which leads us to ask: Why? And why them? So many lives snuffed out in a matter of minutes.
But we know it does not serve to question Your Wisdom in guiding the vicissitudes of mankind. We can only relate to the great pain of those who suffered, both the living and the dead.
We pray to You to please sustain the living so that they survive this ordeal without great physical deformity and pain, and to please receive to your Bosom all the innocent ones whose lives were snuffed out so tragically.
Please help us to acknowledge and feel our dependence on Your Kindness and to thank You for the daily blessings You shower us with. Please help all human beings to recognize their kinship with one another and to desist from the pursuit of harmful dominion of one nation over another.
Let this sudden occurrence be the wake-up call for all humanity to come to its senses and for all of us to practice love and decency toward each other and become worthy recipients of Your Divine bounty.
Amen.