Joshua Casteel, eight-year army veteran and conscientious objector, spoke at Sacred Heart Parish Center in South Bend on July 11th.
...And day after day I prayed a prayer which, little by little, began to dominate all of my moments of solitude.
My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath magnified me; and holy is his name. And his mercy is on them that fear him throughout all generations. He hath shewn strength with his arm; and hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things; anfd the rich he hath sent empty away. He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy; As he spake to our forefather Abraham, and to his seed for ever.
Raised as an Evangelical, the transformation of my Marian prayer life came by almost complete surprise. But, these were the prayers that I fled to, that helped fashion my experiences when my own words seemed almost untrustworthy. I didn’t know how to pray exactly. I’d never been to war, I’d never had to comprehend the feeling of talking face to face with whom one refers to generally as “the enemy”...
Hail, Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
That was a prayer I could comprehend. I hoped to be molded by the prayers of the Church, rather than simply praying for my own needs, as I saw those needs to be myself. This was a crossroads where I did not trust myself to properly gauge what those needs actually were. One does not think clearly when bombed on a regular basis. One does not think clearly under threat. You think for survival, you think for safety. But as CS Lewis has told us, Aslan isn’t safe, he’s good. I knew that I needed to pray for something greater than my own safety. I needed to find some way of praying for truth, and to seek a way for that truth to shape me - even in the midst of threat.
... Many Western interrogators revel in frustration over a feeling that goes like, “Don’t these people understand laws? Don’t they understand logic?” I, on the other hand, read this article and instinctively related more to the description of the shame based society. When I was eleven, I got caught shoplifting with two of my little hoodlum friends. Of course breaking the law was a grave mistake, but it was walking through the front door of my home and staring into the disappointed eyes of my mother that instructed me of what matters. When I walked into the interrogation booth, I saw men whose families knew they had been imprisoned. More than a few had done plenty to earn their stay. One flat out told me he would kill me if he had the chance. He said he’d come to kill people like me, and would try again if God granted him such an honor. Other times, however, I’d stare across the table at taxi drivers, at local laborers, at school boys, at young fathers, at Imams, and at veterans of previous Iraqi wars. I was the main interrogator once of five breadwinners who had been taken from one home. In a patriarchal, war-time economy, that could have just as easily spelled death for the family members of these five men.
And these were the faces and stories of enemies I took with me into my moments of solitude and prayer.
He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.
The entire talk is worth reading, especially in light of the reversals contained in Luke's Gospel examined in the readings posted last week.
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