"Lord Have Mercy on Us..."

Originally published MONDAY, MAY 09, 2011

Nostalgia for Russia...

Do you ever hear a song and it throws you back to a feeling you had when you were little? That happened to me tonight, although I had to chuckle when I realized that 'little' meant half my lifetime ago -when I was 17 (young, but I guess not really 'little') and for the first time stepped into the barren land of Russia. I had no idea at the time what deep lines the Lord was carving in my soul from that summer mission experience with the Slovakian based 'Pro Deo et Fratribus' Community. I wish somehow I could convey to you all the feelings, smells, people and experiences that are awakened in my heart's memory when I hear this song... but I guess you would have had to have been there.

The work was heart-breaking that summer (hours spent between adoration and visiting the 'patients' at the village hospital who were locked in cages during the day). The days were spent with no electricity, no plumbing, little food (for the shelves were still bare in the stores) -living with a community of 10 ex-drug addicts from Moscow, an American priest and seminarian and 'missionaries' from many countries (I think I counted 8 languages being spoken at once at our big dinner table). It was an experience I think would be impossible for the youth of today to have -for there still were no cell phones, no computers, no ways to be connected to home -it was a raw mission experience -just you and the 'new world' -and yet, this extra 'distance' allowed for God to enter the heart in a truly profound way. It was hidden away in the village of Gagarinka that I found for myself -in a radical way -the meaning of life and how I wanted to spend the rest of my own (life). It was a simple combination of work, prayer and 'fiat' to whatever circumstances God brought one's way. It was there that for the first time I actually fell in love with my Jesus in the Eucharist.

And I will never forget the music -of the sisters singing on the 24 hour train ride from Austria into Moscow, of the 3-4 hour long Sunday service at a nearby Orthodox Church, of the Masses on our 3rd-floor make-do chapel of the mission house...

One Russian phrase I learned that summer was 'Gospodie Pomiluje' -"Lord, Have Mercy..." This song repeats over and over again. It is something my heart would come to scream out many times in years to come during my time living in and later visiting Eastern Siberia... For what could I really do for these street children besides ask for the mercy of God?

It is a song that my heartbeat repeated as I walked through Africa, through the trash dumps of the Philippines picking up a child who had fallen while playing in the refuse. It is a song I would sing through silence -in prayer -as I watched a lady cruelly strike her child in Walmart -or as I watched the teenage boys lost (in a spiritual sense) as they tormented young girls on the South Side of town... It is something I prayed last night watching the violence of the Middle East as my parents watched the news... 'Lord, have mercy on us, and on the whole world.'

Gospodie Pomiluje -'Lord, have mercy...' Its a deep prayer of the soul -something simple -but something our world needs so badly today (as Jesus reminded St. Faustina). Lord, have mercy...

Part of my heart I've left in Russia each time I've visited, each time I've left. Buried with Jesus on the Cross, I've left my heart to be the 'seed that dies to bear great fruit' for this wounded country that has such a rich spiritual heritage. But although part of my heart will always be left in Russia, part of my heart has simply taken part of Russia out to the whole world. What can we learn from Communist Russia? God can use the strangest of instruments to teach us His lessons of Love... We can learn the simple prayer of the heart -'Gospodie, Pomiluje' -Lord, as we set forth to keep following your will, have mercy.

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