Report of Ash Wednesday Witness in Proximity to the White House

“A Church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed – what Gospel is that?… This Lent, which we observe amid blood and sorrow, ought to presage a transfiguration of our people, a resurrection of our nation. The church invites us to a modern form of penance, of fasting and prayer – perennial Christian practices, but adapted to the circumstances of each people…   

Lenten fasting is not the same thing in those lands where people eat well as is a Lent among our third-world peoples, undernourished as they are, living in a perpetual Lent, always fasting. For those who eat well, Lent is a call to austerity, a call to give away in order to share with those in need. But in poor lands, in homes where there is hunger, Lent should be observed in order to give to the sacrifice that is everyday life the meaning of the cross…

But it should not be out of a mistaken sense of resignation. God does not want that. Rather, feeling in one’s flesh the consequences of sin and injustice, one is stimulated to work for social justice and a genuine love for the poor. Our Lent should awaken a sense of social justice… “— From the writings of St. Oscar Romero, 

Martyred Archbishop of San Salvador

Dear Friends,

Today, Ash Wednesday, from Noon-1:00 PM, over 40 peacemakers from the faith-based peace and justice community in the D.C.-Baltimore-Virginia area, gathered in proximity to the White House for a Prayer Service of Repentance. This Liturgy was organized by the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker. Groups that endorsed and participated in this prayer service included the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, Assisi Community, Pax Christi USA and Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Franciscan Action Network, and the Sisters of Mercy Justice Team.

Due to Pennsylvania Ave. being closed to the public for security reasons, we held our witness near the Peace Park Vigil site (going non-stop 24/7 since 1981) on the south side of Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House. (see above photo).

Below is the program for the Prayer Service. Please see below moving reflections of Marie Dennis (who just returned from occupied Palestine) and Scott Wright. Also please see Opening Reflection that I offered.    

I am deeply grateful to everyone who attended this prayer service and for each of the program participants who read, sang and offered such inspiring prayers/reflections.

Toward the end of the prayer witness, ashes that were blessed by Fr. Paul Lininger and distributed among the participants. After receiving the ashes, peacemakers used a different batch of wood-stove ashes to mark the ground around us as a sign of repentance for the sins of the nation as well as our commitment to resist the forces of sin, death, violence and empire, and to follow the Gospel.  

During this Holy Lenten Season, let us pray with and for each other, and for our church and world, that we can truly repent and convert our lives to making God’s reign of love, justice, mercy and nonviolence a reality.

With great gratitude, 

Art  

PROGRAM FOR ASH WEDNESDAY LITURGY OF REPENTANCE

February 22, 2023 Noon-1:00 PM — Across the Street from the White House
Song: Prayer of PeacePeace before us, peace behind us, peace under our feet..Peace within us, peace over us, let all around us be peace…Love before us…
Welcome/Opening–Art LaffinReading: Joel: 2, 12-18 — Sr. Marie LuceyReading: From the writings of St. Oscar Romero — Bill Frankel-Streit
Litany–Sung Response: God Forgive the Wrong We’ve Done, God Forgive Us Now (2x’s)Art Laffin / Judy Coode / Joe Wiehagen / Frank Panopoulos / Thomas Kenney Gould / Amy Argenal / Jack McHale / Bill Frankel-Streit / Lauren Bailey / Sr. Carol Gilbert / Michele Dunne

Concluding Litany Prayer–Cathleen Cooney

Remembering Truth-Tellers, Whistleblowers and Prisoners: Kathy Boylan and Mike Walli 
Reflections: Marie Dennis, Scott Wright & Jean Stokan
Song: Ashes (by Tom Conry) –Led by Meade Jones HannaWe rise again from ashes from the good we’ve failed to do. We rise again from ashes to create ourselves anew. If all our world is ashes, then must our lives be true, an offering of ashes, an offering to You. We offer You our failures, we offer You attempts; the gifts not fully given, the dreams not fully dreamt. Give our stumbling direction, give our visions wider view, an offering of ashes, an offering to You.Then rise again from ashes, let healing come to pain, though spring has turned to winter, and sunshine turned to rain. The rain we’ll use for growing, and create the world anew, from an offering of ashes, an offering to you.
Blessing and Distribution of Ashes – Fr. Paul Lininger, OFM Conv. Ash Witness Ritual 
Closing Reading/Prayer from Seasons of Faith and Conscience by Bill Wylie-Kellermann – Bill Frankel-Streit
Song: World Peace Prayer  Lead us from death to life, from falsehood to truth, From despair to hope, from fear to trust; Lead us from hate to love, from war to peace; Let peace fill our hearts, let peace fill our world, Let peace fill our universe.  V. 1-Let justice ever roll, let mercy fill the earth. Let us begin to grow into your people. We can be love, we can bring peace, We can still be your way of compassion. Refrain:V.2-Still all the angry cries, still all the angry guns, Still now your people die, earth’s sons and daughters. Let Justice roll, let mercy pour down, come and teach us Your way of compassion. Refrain:

______________________________________________________________________________Welcome/Opening for Ash Wednesday Liturgy of Repentance-2023–Art Laffin
Good Afternoon. We thank God for the miracle of this day and for all life and creation. We greet everyone here outside the White House in a spirit of peace and nonviolence. My name is Art Laffin from the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker. Welcome to everyone who has come here today to be part of this Ash Wednesday Liturgy of Repentance and Resistance. As we gather here today we are especially mindful of those who originally inhabited this land, the Piscataway Indian tribe, and that their land was stolen from them. God forgive U.S.! 
There are people here from many different communities and organizations from the DMV who have endorsed the witness, including the Dorothy Day CW, Assisi Community, Pax Christi USA and Metro DC-Baltimore, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Franciscan Action Network, Sisters of Mercy Justice Team, Little Flower Catholic Worker. Thank you all for coming today and for all your great life-giving Gospel work. 
Today is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent. Lent is a time for personal and societal repentance, radical conversion and transformation. Living under the brutal occupation of the Roman empire, Jesus declared: “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe in the Gospel.” Living in the U.S. empire, which is responsible for so much needless death and suffering in our world, we need to heed Jesus’ proclamation of repentance and conversion now more than ever. 
As we stand in the presence of God, we call on Jesus, our crucified and Risen Savior, and summon the cloud witnesses–past and present–as we come to pray and witness outside the White House, in solidarity with sisters and brothers engaged in similar acts of witness worldwide, calling for repentance and conversion of ourselves, our society and our churches to the Gospel way of love, justice, nonviolence and a reverence for all life. Today, we commit ourselves to praying and working for an end to all that separates, wounds and divides God’s global family.
At this perilous moment when humanity is once again on the brink of nuclear catastrophe, due to deteriorating relations between the two largest nuclear powers–the U.S. and Russia–and exacerbated by NATO expansion in eastern Europe and deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in 5 European countries, and the tragic Russian invasion of Ukraine, now nearly one year old,  we say loudly and clearly with Jesus: “Love one another,” “Love your enemies,” “Be merciful as God is merciful,” “Put away the sword,” Thou shalt not kill!” We say to the warring parties: “Negotiate a Just Peace Now!” We call on all soldiers everywhere: Lay down your arms! Refuse to Fight–Refuse to Kill! All war and aggression, whether carried out by the U.S. or Russia or any other nation, violates God’s command: Thou shalt not kill! Mark Colville, on behalf of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 writes: “Killing indiscriminately with impunity; environmental destruction without boundary or responsibility; the plunging of millions into refugee status; the flouting of law, human rights, international cooperation and the authority of the United Nations—these are the common threads that tie together Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine. These are the “constitutive elements,” of the “unmitigated evil” of nuclear weapons.” March 19th will mark the 20th anniversary of the sinful and criminal U.S. “Shock and Awe” bombing and occupation of Iraq.  Let us heed the words of the late peacemaking prophet, Daniel Berrigan: “There is no cause however noble that justifies the taking of a single life, much less millions of them! Let us heed the words of Pope Francis: “Abolish war now, before war erases humanity from history.” Let us heed the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.: “The choice before us is either nonviolence or nonexistence.”
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

OCCUPIED PALESTINE–ASH WEDNESDAY REFLECTION—Marie Dennis

A massacre is happening in Nablus City, the West Bank. It started about 3 hours ago and still continues; 10 Palestinian citizens were murdered so far; 102 have been injured.

Ten days ago, a solidarity delegation from Pax Christi International was in Palestine. In the week we were there we heard from so many people (mostly Palestinians but also Israelis) the same devastating story of occupation, apartheid, shrinking space and outrageous behavior on the part of the far-right Israeli government. We saw recently demolished houses and heard so many stories of people trying to hold onto their homes and land. More have been demolished in East Jerusalem since. We heard about Palestinians who had tried for 20 years to get a permit to repair their house and who found out that an Israeli settler already had a permit to build on their same plot of land. We saw so many places where the Israeli Wall separated families from their land and from each other, children from their schools, people from their olive trees. The new infrastructure of tunnels, huge bridges and new highways to connect settlements to Jerusalem is shocking. Relentless insults like the new sewage vent that regularly releases foul odors right next to a Bedouin elementary school classroom. Most have no hope at all in a two-state solution and think one state is impossible also. There is talk of a new Nakba and it feels that way. The stories of heartbreak are not old stories; they are ongoing. We heard so much frustration that the world (especially the US, but also Europe) has ignored the occupation of Palestine for decades. We heard again and again specifics about the deliberate, horrific control/exclusion of the Palestinian people that has to be clearly identified as carefully orchestrated apartheid. That is not anti-Semitic; it is the truth.

But people stay. They call their steadfastness “sumud”- an expression of nonviolent resistance. I had many conversations about nonviolence with Palestinians, trying to understanding what role if any nonviolence has/can have in their struggle against the violence of occupation. The resistance of the Palestinian people is powerful, pervasive and nonviolent; it is a way of life at a personal, interpersonal and communal level: powerful stories of resistance permanently posted on the separation Wall , strikes and demonstrations, gardens and music, prayer and public witness.

God, forgive us for our failure to speak truth about the viciousness of occupation in Palestine. Forgive the United States, the one country that could effectively intervene to end the occupation, but instead fully supports the militarization ..

_____________________________________________________________________

ASH WEDNESDAY REFLECTION—Scott Wright

Last December, the SHARE Foundation and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) traveled to El Salvador to commemorate the 42nd anniversary of the martyrdom of the four churchwomen, and then to Honduras to stand with the water defenders in Guapinol.

Since then, seven environmental defenders have been assassinated in Honduras. Last night, the family of one of the victims, texted to let us know that their home is being surveilled by drones, probably from the mining company that is threatening their lands and waters.

Today, not only are the rights of people to migrate being violated, but the right NOT to migrate as well, consequence of decades of backing repressive military and governments backing US extractive industries that seek to extract the mineral and natural wealth, destroying the environment, and assassinating hundreds of environmental leaders who get in the way.

For that reason, millions of people are crossing borders every hour, just to survive and protect their families.

Gloria Anzaldua, a Mexican American poet from the US – Mexico border, describes the border as “an open wound.” It is a fit description for what is happening at many borders throughout the world.

In the past two years under the Biden administration, more than 4 million people have either been deported or expelled under Title 42. Today he announced that further restrictions would be imposed on people seeking asylum. That means reversing international treaties and US law that recognized the right of refugees to ask for US asylum on US soil, even if they entered without documents.

These are refugees and asylum seekers fleeing violence and death in their countries of origin. Their right to migrate has been systematically violated, but so has their right not to migrate, consequence of decades of US policies that have systematically denied the peoples of Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean through support for military dictatorships, unjust debt and trade policies, and a global extractive economy that is destroying their sacred lands and sacred waters.

Many refugees have made incredibly dangerous journeys through the Darien Gap in Panama, and many have been murdered or died from exhaustion on the way. Those who remain on the Mexico side of the border are extremely vulnerable to kidnapping, torture, and trafficking at the hands of criminal and cartel violence.

Migrants, refugees, internally displaced persons, and asylum-seekers are the human face of war. More people are fleeing violence and war, and humanitarian disasters than in recent memory. More than 100 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes, the largest number since the Second World War. That includes 6 million Syrians, and 8 million Ukrainians who have fled wars in their countries to seek refuge in neighboring lands.

Pope Francis, responding to the war in Ukraine last July, said: “For me, today, World War III has been declared. This is something that should give us pause for thought. What is happening to humanity that we have had three world wars in a century?”

Twenty years ago, on February 15, in New York and San Francisco, here in Washington DC, and in 600 cities across the globe, six to ten million people marched for peace against the impending war in Iraq. It was the largest anti-war protest in history.

May we do everything in our power now to urge a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine, to protect human life, welcome refugees, challenge a global extractive economy, militarism, and the arms race across the globe, and commit ourselves to Gospel nonviolence, knowing that war is always a defeat for humanity, war is always a sin against creation and future generations.