Lament for Haiti

How long, O Lord, how long? How long must the impoverished people of Haiti suffer before the rest of the world stops thinking of them as second-class citizens? How many lives must be lost to earthquakes, to unjust immigration policies, international double standards and economic embargoes before the channels of Your grace and our graciousness are opened to them? How many Restavek children need to be sold into servitude before there is adequate employment to keep parents fed? How long will Haiti's political polarities strangle the needs of the people? O God, hear the desperate cries of your Haitian people, and pour out your grace upon them. But let us hear their cries as well, and mourn as they mourn. Take our hearts in the wake of this horrid tragedy and open them, soften them to the centuries-long plight of these good and generous people. Help us to see them in the light of the suffering Christ, in whom so many of them place their stalwart faith. Let there be an "aftershock" in our souls, that we might change our ways and open our lives to their desperate need.