Diocesan
Life Columns
Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Bishop Paul's writes a monthly column for the Diocesan Newspaper, Diocesan
Life, edited by Communication
Minister, Bill Lewellis.
For more features from the life of our diocese, check Diocesanlife....ONLINE; and Bethlehem
News.
God Be With Us As We Struggle
Bishop Paul V. Marshall
September 14, 2001
Diocesan Life, October 2001
As deadlines work, I write to you on Holy Cross Day, September
14. My reflections on the terrorist atrocities that hit our country
three days ago are still far from complete. That may describe what
you are thinking. Like many of you, I am still trying to take in
the enormity of what has happened to us in these acts of war.
Some bishops sent their dioceses letters to be read in church
this Sunday. The letters I have seen are very good. Choosing a
different path, I sent a set of prayers to each parish to be used
for or with the Prayers of the People.
It is my hope that our response as a church and as a nation will
come from prayer and mature reflection. One of the hymns I learned
in childhood speaks of bringing "everything to God in prayer." That
needs to be our first response. Most of us know to our regret that
when it is not our first response, damage can be done.
In our prayer and in our conversation, we can acknowledge that
we feel many things: pain, confusion, outrage, patriotism, the
desire to see justice done, the desire to hit back. We feel some
of the horror of the families and friends of the five thousand
who are missing, of the hundreds who are known to be dead. More
firefighters have died than there are people in some hamlets or
patches in this diocese. We feel and think many things. We need
to be patient with one another. Each of us may be at a different
point in processing what has happened and continues to happen.
People who escaped or witnessed the devastation in New York and
Washington are severely traumatized. Those of you who are veterans
know they may take years to recover, if they do. Some who survive
are already experiencing "survivor's guilt," and also may never
be the same.
There are and there will be many other hurts and disappointments
as the waves from this tragedy continue to roll over our life.
Keep these people in prayer. Be ready to respond in love to the
victims yet to be.
One of the questions that arises in us when terrible things happen,
small or great, is "Why could God let this happen?"
We meet in every atrocity the dark side of God's decision to create
us with will, God's gamble. Because we are able to love, we are
able to hate; because we are able to create, we are able to destroy.
The God who joins us in the incarnation of Jesus Christ takes
his chances, joins us in what humans suffer from each other. He
stands with us at every scene of destruction and cruelty. Jesus
weeping over Jerusalem, over humanity, because it knew what was
necessary for peace and would not appropriate it, is not just a
sentimental story. It is our tragedy as a race, and again we taste
for ourselves the bitterness of those tears of Jesus.
It is Holy Cross Day, commemorating the supposed discovery of
the Lord's cross. That is impossible to verify, but the day has
become a time in the church's year to think again of the mystery
of our redemption, and how the device used to debase and destroy
became the sign of our salvation. It is the sign of God's presence
with us in the worst that human sin can do.
They say there is a piece of Christ's cross at the University
of Notre Dame. On Good Friday, at the traditional moment after
the prayers for all the varieties of human need, in the silence
and darkness, what light there is guides the eye to that piece
of the cross.
In the midst of what we cannot even take in, let alone understand,
our eyes must go to the sign of God's presence and solidarity with
us. That needs to be our comfort, but it also needs to be what
shapes our actions in response to what has happened.
There must be justice in this matter - the world simply cannot
become the private playground for every rich man with an army of
fanatics willing to die. Evil must be named for what it is.
At the same time, we cannot defend our country's principles by
ignoring them. The perpetrators and those who abet them must face
justice. We do not uphold the value of the lives lost by more wholesale
slaughter. It is the hard cases like this one that make us ask
how much we really believe in what America represents.
In Philadelphia last night a mob attacked some Sikhs, because
they wear beards and their heads are covered: they looked like
Muslims to the crowd, a cruel irony. At Lehigh University there
has been violence against Muslim students in the last few days.
Letting out anger in random vengeance seeking reminds me of the
very worst days in our history, from racist lynch mobs to Japanese
internment camps of World War II. No amount of outrage or fear
justified the victimization of a people or striking out at convenient
targets then, and it does not do so now. The damage such deeds
do takes generations to repair.
My thoughts, perhaps like yours, are still very disconnected as
I grope my way through the horror.
We can uphold each other as we continue to struggle with what
has happened and as it eventually becomes time to ask deeper questions
about the causes and prevention of such acts.
We can act to care for those who are traumatized and those who
will be.
We struggle through this as a community of those who recognize
in Christ's cross God's compassion for a race still learning to
live.
God be with you.
God be with us as we struggle.
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