Readings:
PRAYER (traditional language)[Common of a Martyr]
[Common of a Saint]
[Of the Holy Cross]
[For All Baptized Christians]
[For Peace]
Almighty God who hast exalted thy humble Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords: Enkindle within the hearts of the leaders of this world a yearning for peace with justice as thou didst within thy servant Dag Hammarskjöld and, following his good example, ever guide our feet into the way of peace; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and forever. Amen.
PRAYER (contemporary language)
Almighty God who exalted your humble Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords: Kindle within the hearts of the leaders of this world a yearning for peace with justice as you did within your servant Dag Hammarskjöld and, following his good example, ever guide our feet into the way of peace; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and forever. Amen.
This commemoration appears in A Great Cloud of Witnesses
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Last updated: 20 July 2019
DAG HJALMAR AGNE CARL HAMMASKJÖLD
PEACEMAKER, 1961
Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld (pronounced HAM-mar-shold) was born in 1905, the son of the Prime Minister of Sweden. He studied law and economics, and taught economics at the University of Stockholm. He became president of the board of the Bank of Sweden, then Minister of State, then head of the Swedish delegation to the United Nations, and then Secretary General of the United Nations. In 1960 the Belgian Congo (now Zaire) became independent, and civil war promptly broke out. Hammarskjold went in to negotiate a cease-fire, and was killed in a plane crash in Zambia on 18 September 1961.
For years, he had kept a private journal, writing down his thoughts on the Lordship of Christ and its meaning for his life. After his death, the journal was published under the title Markings. Two extracts follow.
God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a ersonal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.
He who has surrendered himself to it knows that the Way ends on The Cross--even when it is leading through the jubilation of Gennesaret or the triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
by James Kiefer