WHAT DO WE DO?

 

WHAT DO WE DO?

The massacre in Uvalde, TX is one of a long list of horrendous attacks on innocent children in the United States.  Columbine, OH in 1999; Red Lake, Minnesota in 2005; Nickels Mines, PA in 2006; Virginia Tech in 2007; Sandy Hook in 2012; Parkland, FL and Santa Fe, Ca in 2018.  I could cite more but I won’t.

Why the young?  The shooters are often young themselves.  There is no logic to it.  Except when we recognize that there is more behind these attacks than mental illness.  I believe that they are the inspiration of Satan, who hates innocence.  He hated Christ for his innocence.  He hated the Holy Innocents who were massacred by the soldiers of Herod after the visit of the Magi to the Christ child in Bethlehem.  The influence of Satan is surely behind the ongoing holocaust on the innocent unborn.

Children represent our future.  They are our hope.  We see in them so many promises.  This is why they are targeted by the Enemy.  How do we protect them?  If my assessment is correct, we must fight this battle on the spiritual as well as the material level.  On the material level, the debate about what must be done by civil authorities to prevent and protect should be vigorous and reasonable.  Political motivations should be absent.  There should be accountability.  But not everyone can be involved at this level. 

All of the baptized can be involved on the spiritual level, for as we learned in our Confirmation, we are soldiers of Christ.  The attack on children and young people is one theater in the war waged by the devil and his cohorts against human beings.  Both Scripture and Tradition reveal that there is a battle being waged between good and evil.  It is an uncomfortable subject about which we don’t often speak, but it is a reality which Pope Francis referenced several times in the days following his election.  He commented, “When one does not profess Jesus Christ, he professes the worldliness of the devil.”  To his Cardinals he said, “Let us never give in to pessimism, to that bitterness that the devil tempts us with every day.” In one of his first papal tweets, Francis wrote: “We must not believe the Evil One when he tells us that there is nothing we can do in the face of violence, injustice and sin.”  The Second Vatican Council taught that “The whole of man’s history has been the story of dour combat with the powers of evil, stretching, so our Lord tells us, from the very dawn of history until the last day” (Gaudium et Spes 37). 

There is much that the Christian can do in the fight against evil.  St. Paul calls us into spiritual combat: “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.  For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”  He calls us to put on the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.  And to pray at all times in the Spirit (cf. Ephesians 6). 

In my homilies on the Ascension, I asked what can we do in the face of the shocking evil we witnessed in the attacks on school children.  The temptation is to feel helpless and do nothing.  I suggested that as Christians, there is something that we can do.  We can be what Jesus made us to be, the light of the world.  “You are the light of the world…Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Mat 5:14,16).

Satan wins when we allow our light to be dowsed by sin or cowardness.  When we see evil, instead of throwing up our hands and giving into hopelessness, we must double down on our commitment to God and to personal holiness.  “The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful” (James 5:16).  In this battle we are sustained by the virtue of hope, because we know how it all ends: “The devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever” (Rev 20:10).  But the servants of God “shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads.  And night shall be no more; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they shall reign forever and ever” (Rev 22:4-5).  Let us pray for the victims and their loved ones, and by God’s grace, let us fight the good fight (cf. 1 Tim 6:12).