On
Monday evening, one of the women in my prayer group was in tears during
petitions. A friend of her 12 year old
daughter’s had been taken from school in an ambulance with an unknown
condition. Speaking to her later, she
said, “You say good-bye to your kids in the morning thinking that you’ll see
them in the evening”. Tears welled up in
her eyes again as we silently pondered the weight of motherhood and the
fragility of life. Trying not to sound flip, and in all earnestness I said,
“That is why we have faith. We believe in life after death”. Those words eerily came to mind yesterday as
I saw the news about Sandy Hook Elementary School. As a
Mom and a daughter of God, I thought I would share how I am handling this senseless
tragedy.
As I was
preparing to leave my office and pray the Rosary with friends at Noon, I saw
that there was a school shooting at an elementary school and at the time the
report was one was dead. “So tragic,”
was my thought. I prayed the Rosary, on
my knees, for the parents and family members of the victim, for
the children and teachers who experienced such violence in their school and for
the shooter and his family. I petitioned
Mary to cover the entire community with her mantel. I begged for a multitude of angels to be sent
to the area to protect it. I pleaded for the Lord to be merciful and save the
soul of the deceased. And I prayed for
the safety of school children everywhere.
Soon I
learned that the tragedy was much larger than initially reported. How do I make
sense of such a heartbreaking calamity? Prayer
is my first step. I paused often yesterday
to repeat the prayers made during the Rosary and added other prayers. I prayed to the Lord, and petitioned for
prayer from Mary, St. Rose of Lima, my parents (who were school teachers), and
the litany of saints who have become my friends over the years.
Eucharist and Adoration are other steps that can be taken in
the wake of disaster. Going to daily
mass and offering up prayers in thanksgiving for the safety of loved ones as
well as for the community of Newton, Connecticut can be comforting. Time spend in front of the Eucharist at Adoration
can do the same. St. Rose of Lima
Catholic church is across the street from the school. It had a mass last night that had hundreds of
people flowing out onto the parish grounds.
It was also open all night for prayer.
This
incident gave me the opportunity to stop and realize, once again, that this is
not our home. God created us to live
with him in eternity once our life on this earth is over. Perhaps when we are ensconced in one of the
mansions referred to by Jesus in the Gospel of John, we will understand why
senseless tragedy strikes. This world is
not heaven and there will be suffering.
Believing that God is in control and that he loves us more than we can
imagine is a healing balm for me.
Another
form of healing balm can be spending quality time with my son. Last night I was
getting ready to go to bed, my 15 year old asked if I wanted to play a game of
Jeopardy on the I Pad. “Of course” was
my response, in spite of the fact that I was really tired. With all of the events of the day, the
opportunity to spend time with him was welcome.
We always learn something about each other when we play. Tonight under
the category of “Foreign Phrases”, we were asked to identify the Latin name for
the “Our Father”. After answering it
correctly, my son began singing the Our Father in Latin. What a wonderful gift on a tragic day.
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