Lay and Skilling: Prayers for Criminals

Sunday morning in church, I heard myself offer out loud an Intercession for "Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling and their families". At the coffee hour, a friend said to me that reminded him of a story told by the former Rector: while in seminary the aspiring priest had had a falling out with one of his classmates. His spiritual advisor recommended that he pray for the guy. "But he's a creep," Warren replied (or words to that effect). "Which is exactly why you need to pray for him," responded the spiritual director. I was thinking of a similar incident: one of the chapters in Mother Crafton's Yes, We'll Gather at the River in which she talks about two parishioners who couldn't stand each other; she convinced them to remember each other in prayer. Maybe just the name was enough. Soon, they were able to speak cordially and visit casually. There was some healing.

So we pray for criminals. They need all the help they can get -- they obviously didn't have a clue what they were really doing. Don't get me wrong: we certainly pray for their victims too, but that comes more easily to mind, I think.