Let us remember

That we are in the Holy presence of God

W.E.B DuBois: “Give Us Grace”

Educator and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois became the first African American to receive a doctorate from Harvard. An agnostic for much of his life, he nonetheless wrote dozens of exquisite spiritual entreaties. In this prayer he recalls the Old Testament figure of Esther, who daringly confronts her husband, King Xerxes, and demands that he overturn his court’s order to kill all the Jews of the Persian Empire.

Give us grace, O God, to dare to do the deed which we well know

cries to be done. Let us not hesitate because of ease, or the

words of men’s mouths, or our own lives. Mighty causes are

calling us—the freeing of women, the training of children, the

putting down of hate and murder and poverty—all these and

more. But they call with voices that mean work and sacrifices

and death. Mercifully grant us, O God, the spirit of Esther, that

we say: I will go unto the King and if I perish, I perish.

Saint John Baptist de La Salle – Pray for Us.