"In Benevolent Remembrance of Anna Kolesárová: A Voice of Love Engages A Murdered Girl" Mary Sue Barnett ARCWP

A Prayer

Loving Voice: The look in the soldier's eye

Anna: was from an elsewhere darkness 

Loving Voice: The sound of his voice

Anna: violated my soul

Loving Voice: The threats he muttered at you

Anna: were erasing my life as I still breathed 

Loving Voice: The gun he pointed at you

Anna: stirred my desperation to live 

Loving Voice: You knew his intentions

Anna: cruel and dehumanizing 

Loving Voice: You found strength and courage Anna: to fight back because I loved myself

Loving Voice: A fight you could not win

Anna: but for my family 

Loving Voice: A strength that held you

Anna: it was like a Breeze

Loving Voice: A peace that soothed you

Anna: She vanquished the terror 

Loving Voice: A love that filled you

Anna: He welcomed me

Loving Voice: Rest in endless love 

Anna: you are my witness

Loving Voice: Rest in endless peace, brave one

Anna: I am, beloved friend 

https://international.la-croix.com/news/her-too/8442

Note from Mary Sue Barnett: I co-wrote this prayer with a friend (who remains anonymous) as a loving, healing alternative to the September 2018 beatification of a Slovak girl, Anna Kolesárová, in which she was classified as a martyr in defense of her virginity. She was murdered by a Russian soldier would-be-rapist in 1944 in her home in front of her family. 

It is painful to see that the current Pope, the leader of the largest Christian denomination in the world, endorses the thinking that it is holy for a girl to fight unto her death to avoid being raped, that it is better for a girl to be murdered than to be sexually violated. This thinking cannot possibly come from a living God.