Connecticut and 3rd Sunday of Advent

What are we to do with the tragedy of Connecticut.

20 children shot down.  7 adults lives are ended, one of which is the shooter himself.

How are we to understand this?  Can we understand this?

As I was watching the breaking news about Connecticut in Warm Springs visiting a parishioner who was dealing with the effects of a stroke, I found my self disappointed with the news media.

The kept asking the question about how did the young man get the guns and the ammunition.  I thought  to myself, they are asking the wrong question.  How much time do we spend barking up the wrong tree.

Why ask about the ammunition when so many other important question could have been asked like:

 What kind of darkness was he dealing with that caused him to act out in such a horrific manner?

Is the ammunition to blame?  Or is there a deeper sickness we are refusing to acknowledge that has swept through our nation?


I also began to wonder why do we even care about these 20 children that have been killed?  Will it make a difference in our lives?  Will it begin to change things in our society or in a few days will we just get on with lives as usual?  When this incident is no longer on the front pages or blasted on TV, will we just get on with living, simply throwing a prayer their way and being thankful it wasn't our family, our child, our mother, our sibling.

Why do their deaths matter and yet we live in a country where 1 million babies are killed in their mother's womb every year by abortion, abortion that is funded by tax payer money and yet nothing changes?

Why are we appalled  by this behavior when we have legalized the slaughtering of innocent children under the guise of reproductive health...what a joke.

The bottom line is that there is a sickness in our country.  Have you noticed that as our morality declines, plummets, so does the mental health of the people!  As we let our morality slide, the people don't get healthier they get sicker.  As more and more things are tolerated, then less and less things matter.

Take a look in our society.  Have you noticed how violence has been glorified in our entertainment?  Think of the movies that are produced.  Each movie gets more and more graphic and human life means less and less.

How often do we watch a film where someone "hero" leaves bloodshed in his wake and as people are killed off the screen just keeps moving.  There is no sense of mourning, no sense of grief, no sense of loss.  The bodies are squeezed off as the next scene shifts in.


Think about our video games.  How much blood shed is splattered on the screen and called entertainment.  No one can tell me that kind of disregard fro human life on the "big screen" or on the "video screen" doesn't have a negative impact on us.

We have so devalues life that taking life doesn't mean much at all.

The other issue is how we will deal with people who are mentally challenged, who are not like the rest of us.  What we do when we meet someone who is different?  Usually we distance ourselves or we stigmatize that person.

I was reading comments about the young man who was the shooter.  His classmates were making comments how he was shy and distant.   They said he never participated in class room discussion and he was always the first to leave the class room when the bell rung.  They mentioned ho he was socially awkward.  Surely these were tell tale signs of deeper issues, who knows perhaps anti social behavior or other mental challenges and yet where was the help he could have used?

Our society has not done well in providing help and aid to parents with mentally challenged children.  It is hard and because it is hard we quietly let them slip through the cracks breathing a sigh of relief when they are no longer ours to deal with.

Now I know there are many out there who care and who are concerned and who try really hard by investing their lives in giving aid, but a majority of us rather stand idly bye and do nothing.

We are the ones who are responsible not the guns or the ammunition.

The fact that the reporter want to politicize the issue and make it about our President's stance and the NRA was appalling.

Our culture and our society has been sliding downward for decades.  In the name of tolerance we have allowed our country to slowly deteriorate.

When will we begin to stand up for things that really matter, that should matter.

This isn't the first incident.  Remember colorado, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, the Theatre just within the past year where the young man opened fire.

We need to dig a little deeper than guns and Ammo.

What are we to do?   THis is the question posed to John the Baptist in today's gospel.

Listen to his response: those who have two tunice give one to him who has not, those who have food feed those who are hungry, don't cheat or steal, perform your duty in an honorable way.

John invites us to reach out to those around us.  We are to treat them as we treat our family.  We are to make them a part of our family.  IS this not the way we imitate God, who becomes one of us in order to incorporate us in his family.

IT sounds simple but it is truly effective.

God is all joy because he is all giving.  This is where we begin to start over and bring about restoration and renovation to our culture and our society.


Lastly, we trust that God is with us.  This is what Paul speaks of in today's second reading when he invites us to "rejoice in the Lord always."  Paul writes these words in prison.  He had been arrested and beaten and chained to the floor.  In that experience he pens those words, "rejoice in the lord alway."

Joy is not rooted in the circumstance of our life.  Joy is not first a feeling or sensation.  Joy is an attitude of faithfulness.  But it is not about our faithfulness, rather about God's faithfulness.

In one of his first letters Paul reminds us that the one who has called us in trustworthy and he will do it.

Our joy comes from the reality that we do not go alone.  God is with us.  God's fidelity will ultimately bring light to this darkness, joy in this sorrow, healing in this pain.

God is faithful, and this is what we build our foundation on; it is from this platform we are able to rejoice even in tragedy.

We pray for the Victim's families.  They who were preparing for Christmas, with gifts already beneath the tree are left with a dark corner to turn.  They went from looking forward to the Christmas break to now experience a breaking of their heart.  This is not fair.  This will not be easy.  This will hurt.

We ask God to make himself know in the midst of this reality.

But we also must make a promise not to forget, not to just get on with our lives.  We must make a change.  We must examine our lives and see where we have let our morality slide.  We have to begin to rebuild, renew, renovate.

Get on with our lives in not an option.  We tried that and it doesn't work.

God is with us, we now must let him lead us.
Only then is our rejoicing lasting, is our rejoicing real.