A Thought

“The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them.  In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died and their departure was thought to be a disaster and their going from us to be their destruction, but they are at peace.”  Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-3

We are surrounded by violence, and this violence is causing more than a little fear (sometimes irrational fear) among us; so much so that the Arkansas state legislature passed, and the governor signed, a law allowing properly permitted concealed carry weapons in churches that choose to allow it.  Now it is that these “terrorists” have managed to convinced many that they are not safe even within the sanctuary of the Holy Church and in the very presence of the Almighty God and Lord.

After the tragedy of Sandy Hook, even nominal Christians joined the chorus of those unbelievers who cried out, “Where was your God in all this?  Why did He allow this to happen?  Where is this protective Hand you keep talking about?”  It is these many to whom this Wisdom is directed, the “foolish” who cannot see or believe that those precious lambs who were caught up in the evil acts of a single man are “at peace” with our God; they are not stuck in the perpetual torment of their last moments on this earth even though we are.

This does not mean we do not mourn such profound losses because we obviously do, and this does not mean that a community’s deep sorrow should not be shared by an entire nation because it is.  This does not mean we have a death wish or that our God and Father calls us to live recklessly.  Rather He calls us to live courageously with the hope of the “peace” that is at the end of the Journey for those who endure with faith – and especially for the little children whom Jesus favored most!  Sometimes that end comes sooner rather than later, but ultimately it will come to us all.  How it will come or when it will come is not for us to know.  So we have been given assurance in the Scriptures, in the very Voice of the Almighty, that it’s ok.  We will not live long upon this earth, and our passing from this life is more certain than anything else we can know. 

It is the “foolish” who see only “disaster” and “destruction” in death; it is the Faithful who have their hope in the Lord in the assurance of the Resurrection, that glorious moment when evil is finally and completely overcome once and for all!

We must try not to live our lives in fear, for the very manner in which we live is the witness of our faith (or the lack thereof).  We can and should take reasonable measures to keep one another as safe as possible, but we must not submit ourselves to the lowest common denominator and become ourselves what we seem to fear most.

Have peace.  It is our Lord’s most blessed assurance of the life which is to come.

Blessings,

Michael