Thoughts during a time of violence

I’m writing from the USA, where hardly a day goes by when we do not hear the news of senseless violence and its innocent victims. It matters not if the root of this violence is in anger and hatred, or is the act of some deranged person so troubled in mind and spirit that this trouble breaks out from them and makes its mark on the world. Satan is having a field day with us, and the pain and loss is multiplying exponentially. I’m beginning to wonder if it won’t be long before every single person in this country doesn’t know and grieve the loss of someone close to them.

Some self-proclaimed prophets like to say that we are being punished, and then pointing the finger at what they have decided to be the cause of the punishment. But they are not prophets. Never forget that the mark of the true prophet, according to Biblical standards, is the fact that the prophet is never wrong.

Others want to place the blame on politicians, or political realities such as the deep divisions there are in our country at the moment. But again, no one has been given the wisdom to be able to explain what is happening to us these days.

As for me, I simply can bow before the mystery of all this horror, and admit I do not understand it. I also give thanks for my monastic vocation because as Thomas Merton once remarked on his first visit to the Abbey of Gethsemanee, it is the prayer of the monks that are holding the world together through all of this. I think of this often when called to the Divine Office and to personal prayer, and in the psalms I find all the expressions of deep emotion and hope and torment that are found in those sacred pages. I often want to cry out with the psalmist, “How long, how long, O God? Have you cast us off forever?”

I also find great consolation in the Jesus Prayer, because probably the most helpful thing I can do at this time is to pray for my own soul and for its need for mercy. I have often heard it said that “if you want to change the world, then first change yourself.” Well, OK. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Please be careful and don’t be quick to jump to conclusions about what is going on in our world right now.  It think it is a fruitless waste of time to seek to understand. Our job now is to endure and unite our sadness, fear, disillusionment and pain to the pain of Our Dear Lord on the cross, and pray that He will absorb our suffering into himself and through the miracle which can only come from His love, transform it and transform us.

One last thing: I know that my own country is certainly not the only place where innocent victims of violence are suffering and dying. And I also know that my own country is also guilty of the sin of causing innocent victims to suffer and die elsewhere in the world. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners.” “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.”  Amen.

I’ll be back on  July 22 or 23. God bless you all.