So the stigma still exists today. Those who can afford the medication, or have insurance to assist in paying for it, can for the most part push off illness for many years, if not decades. But in Africa and Asia and South America, people are becoming infected and dying: whole villages are disappearing. Closer to home we have recently heard The Washington Post report that this city, our nation's Capitol, has the highest rate of infection of any city in the United States: the highest rate of infection, the worst rate of infection. And this infection rate is not growing the fastest in the gay community, although it is still a dangerously high percentage, the fastest growing sector is in the community of those whose heritage derives from Africa or the Caribbean Islands. And it is not only men, but the most significant increase in percentage of infections is among women. The face of AIDS has changed dramatically.  

What are we to do? All of this can seem so overwhelming. Certainly we all need to volunteer in some way, shape manner or form: to be involved with some organization. We need to support them through our pocket books, our check books as well. We need to keep the conversation going, keeping this crisis in the forefront of people's awareness to ensure that proper resources are put toward it on a local, national and international level. Not only to provide education and treatment, but to continue the search for a cure. We also need to work as hard as we can to take away the stigma of being HIV positive or in full-blown AIDS.

And the last thing I am going to suggest we can all do is pray. A priest friend of mine in NY, Barbara Crafton, has said something very interesting about prayer. She has a website on which people can post prayer requests and "light a virtual candle". Barbara recently said: 

"I know so few of these people who ask for prayers. But I am always struck by how little it matters that I don't know (the people for whom I am praying)..... personally. Prayer is much more than a festival of my love for someone else. God is active in it -- mysteriously, of course, since it's God: God lives and moves in prayer and I haven't a clue how, or what will happen because I have prayed. I only know something will. Something will happen first in my life, because I have entered into prayer. And in the life of the one for whom I pray, in a way I will never know. And, because there is an ecology of prayer, a connectedness, something will happen in the world itself. The very world is changed because we pray. None of which is much like ordering a pizza -- we don't pray for something and then wait to see it.... we get it before we know our prayer made a difference. The difference comes first. We wait only for our power to see it."

So pray with me:  

Gracious and loving God, we raise up in prayer to you all those people who are HIV+ or have developed some form of AIDS; send your Holy Spirit to provide strength of spirit to endure what they must; and instilling confidence in them of your never failing love; all this we ask through your Son, Jesus Christ our Savior.

Amen