Most dates tend to fade away in history. With the departures of Henry Allingham and Harry Patch, the final British servicemen to have fought in WWI, 11th June-10th November will no longer have the significance to us as the dates of the Battle of Paschendale as it did to the generation before us.
I suspect though that 11/09 will always remain of great rawness because of the sheer volume of media coverage. Of course, the assassination of President Kennedy had a great deal of coverage, but the sheer scale of these terrorist attacks was quite enormous. I personally cannot forget those poor ladies and gentlemen choosing to leap to their deaths rather than to be burned alive, nor of the towers folding like packs of cards as they crumbled to the ground.
Where was God?
In this picture, we see the body of Fr Mychal Judge SSF being taken from the wreckage of the towers. Here is God because here is Love.
Had he not loved, Fr Mychal would not have risked his life for the care of others. He chose to love rather than to save his own skin, rather than stand back as a more sensible person might, and reasonably so. He was called by God into the midst of the horror, an alter Christus in life and an alter Christus in death.
If I am sure of one thing then it's that because Fr Mychal chooses to love that this picture shows us a miracle - Altruism exists, is real and tangible. This man now sits with God in Heaven and is happy.
If we choose love, then we too choose the manner of our own hardships, our own demoralisations, our own deconstructions and our own deaths. We may watch our father die from a debilitating disease that takes him away from us slowly. We may see our daughter killed in a road accident, our nephew caught taking heroin and our spouse badly injured as a result of an "act of God". And we will say "Where is God?"
And God will say - "here I am!" You are hurting because you have chosen to love rather than be indifferent. You are hurting because you bother to hold someone other than yourself to be dear. You are suffering because you are more than some automaton, more than a biological machine. Here is God - in your love. So no, you will not receive your father and daughter back from the dead. No you will not be able to prevent your nephew from taking drugs. And chances are that your spouse will never quite heal from the injury. Not because God doesn't want to stop your pain, but rather that your pain becomes a testament to your love, a badge of honour.
This isn't all our existence. We exist beyond the grave, beyond the wreckage, and way, way beyond any hatred that inspires death and destruction. As St Paul says, what we suffer now is nothing in comparison with what we shall receive if we just keep choosing love no matter how badly it hurts. Notice that he doesn't say "what we suffer now means nothing in comparison with what we shall receive."
No, our sufferings mean a great deal to God, and as we choose to love, He chooses to suffer with us, alongside us with every drop of blood, every tear, every scream of pain, He is there and He cares. He cares because you bothered to care. You chose love. You will not regret ever having done so.
2 comments:
What a powerful poece of writing! Thank you.
ed
Thankyou for this powerful inspirational piece. When there is so much going wrong and everything seems agianst you it is so hard to follow the true way. Time and time again The Lord always leads us back. We don't always see it at first. Why is it so hard to choose love, when without fail the lord always proves to us that this is the only choice, if we are to indeed become fruitful.
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