Perpetual adoration by the light of the Acme

Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and clamorous discord.

The rash one has no integrity;

but the just one, because of his faith, shall live. Hab 1:3b

It's hard for me to look at the first reading for this Sunday without thinking of the current political situation. I am horrified, appalled, sickened that the president of the United States would suggest shooting people in the leg at the border to slow them down. I am ill watching the smug smile of the UK home secretary as she firmly asserts she will stop the free movement of people here and now.

Have they — have we — no regard for human dignity, of the homeless, of women, of those living in with violence and in peril?

I'm writing this in the dark and quiet of a local shelter for homeless families, keeping station at the door. The families are asleep, the van will come early tomorrow morning. A parish I was at years ago hosted perpetual adoration, and I had a weekly late night shift. Now I come again to sit with the Body of Christ, in the dark and thin hours, contemplating not a gold chased tabernacle lit by a single candle, but cream painted block walls awash in the lights of the Acme parking lot across the street. Tantum ergo Sacramentum veneremur cernui.