The habit has grown up of speaking of our ‘unchurched’ relatives, friends, and neighbors, but I recall Larry Beane once commenting online that this vocabulary is nowhere to be found in the New Testament, which instead presents the stark dichotomy of faithful/pistoi and unfaithful/apistoi. Infidelity in itself is quite bad enough but acquires an added dimension of pain and danger when it can be asserted of children of Christian parents who for one reason or another have walked away from the Faith into which they were baptized and catechized. The last two generations have had probably the worst track record of any in Christian history for successfully handing down to the next generation the Faith that they themselves received from their forbears. This latest poem by Kurtzville ON’s Fr Kurt Reinhardt expresses distress, confidence, and bold petition in face of one of the most distressing signs of our times. I understand the artwork as depicting the Ecstasy at Ostia vouchsafed after Monica’s prayers and tears of many years were answered in the conversion and Baptism of Augustine, the greatest of the Fathers of our Western Church. JRS

For Our Lost Children, Lord, We Pray

For our lost children, Lord, we pray,

Who’ve wandered from the narrow way,

They’ve headed off into the night

And left behind Your guiding light.

We lie awake upon our beds,

Our hearts are full of doubts and dreads;

We groan for them with bitter tears

As hell does plague us with our fears.

Will they forget all that is true?

Will they fail to return to You?

Will Satan claim them as his own?

Will they not enter heav’n’s home?

Remind us Lord of Your great love,

That sent Your Son down from above

To seek and save all that was lost

and rescue them at any cost.

His head was crowned their shame to pay.

His feet were pierced for theirs that stray.

His hands were nailed for their misdeeds.

His voice was stilled for their false creeds.

He was forsaken on the tree,

Lost in the depths of agony,

Was swallowed up by darkest night,

and was extinguished from Your sight.

He was lost so they would be found.

He was damned so they would be crowned.

He was rejected as He died,

That in heav’n they’d be glorified.

Christ died to save our children, Lord,

You claimed them with Baptism’s Word,

Forsake them not though they’ve left You,

Draw them again, their faith renew.

Dear heav’nly Father to You we sigh,

We know You hear our every cry,

Help us to trust Your holy will,

With Your love bid our fears be still.