Awful Grace of God

       Over the past week we have witnessed another violent and heartbreaking shooting—this time in the Tree of Life Synagogue. During Shabbat morning services eleven members of the Jewish community were killed and seven injured. The event, like others in the recent past leaves me stunned and once again saying “why.” Death is a hard and certain reality. Words often seem trite in the face of its mystery.

       I share the words of the Greek dramatist, Aeschylus, with you. They have been a source of consolation, not an explanation, more than once for me.

 “Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget

falls drop by drop upon the heart

until, in our own despair, against our will

comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

Aeschylus

       Sr. Mary Catherine Wenstrup, OSB 

The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting was a mass shooting that occurred at Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation^[a] in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 27, 2018, while Shabbat morning services and a bris were being held. Eleven people were killed, and seven were injured. The sole suspect, 46-year-old Robert Gregory Bowers,^[4][5] was arrested and charged with 29 federal crimes and 36 state crimes.^[4][6] The shooting was the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the United States.^[7][8] The event was one of three far-right public attacks that took place in the United States the same week, along with the a series of mail bombing attempts and the Jeffersontown Kroger shooting.^[9]

What are we to do?

The first week of February has been a week full of disparate images and ideas that have stimulated a wide range of emotions in me.

On February 3 the Vatican Information Service issued three bulletins:

            February 2, the Feast of the Presentation, was the Day for Consecrated Life when Pope Francis presided at Eucharist with the members of the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life. In his homily Pope Francis remarked that Christ “became like his brothers and sisters in every respect.” He exhorted members of religious life to “bring others to Jesus.”

                       February 3 Pope Francis recognized the martyrdom of Oscar Romero, Archbishop of El Salvador, “killed in hatred of the faith on 24 March 1908.”

                      February 3 a press conference was held “to present the first International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking. The Day will be held on 8 February, the feast day of Sudanese slave St. Josephine Bakhita who, after being freed, became a Canossian Sister and was canonized in 2000.” The day will be entitled “A light against human trafficking.”

                     And on February 3 the Islamic State published a video online showing a man standing in a cage engulfed in flames. The man was the Jordanian pilot  Moaz al-Kasasbeh who was being held hostage by the Islamic State.

            What are we to think? What are we to feel? What are we to do?

            Christ became like us in every respect. We see Christ in religious women and men who have committed their lives to the love of Christ; we see Christ in the Christian martyrs, who died for their faith; we see Christ in those bound by the chains of slavery and human trafficking; we see Christ in the young Muslim boy burnt alive. And to our consternation and confusion Christ, through his Incarnation as human, calls us to see him in those who commit horrific acts of cruelty and violence.

            Once when I was hurt badly by another person, in my anger and hurt, I came to the disconcerting spiritual reality that God loved and cared for that person as much as God loved and cared for me. God loves the people of the Islamic State as much as God loves those they persecute. God yearns for their welfare and their spiritual salvation as much as God yearns for ours. And all we can do before the God of infinite love is pray that they and we may be delivered from the chains of hatred, vengeance and violence.

                        Sr. Deborah Harmeling, OSB