Faith, Hope, and Love

To say that this week was an painfully exhausting one would be an understatement.  Even for those of us removed from the immediate areas of the tragedies in Boston and West, Texas, the 24x7 media coverage brought the angst into each of our lives, and reminded us of both the pain of our fallen human condition and of the ability to demonstrate compassion of our fellow man.

Amidst the exhausting rawness of that media coverage, two pieces emerged that managed to provide me with some warmth and perspective, reminders of the highest things to which we are called, things that endure even through the suffering: faith, hope, and love, and the Healer who is the source of them all.

First, an op-ed by Erick Erikson, Boston, West, Texas, America, don't give up hope, that ended with this:

The world is not meant to be fair. It is a maddening place filled with bad and evil. But the good shines through. The right overwhelms the wrong. The very real good slays the very real evil. The smiles break through the tears.

You do not have to be mad in a maddening world. You can choose to be happy. You can choose to be optimistic. You can choose to let not your heart be troubled.
I am a man who had to tell my wife she was going to die. By God’s grace she did not die, but is with me still.

I can tell you confidently it is no easy thing to let your heart not be troubled. But I can tell you in a world where so many politicize everything, we yell at each other, and every hill is a hill on which to die, whether you choose to believe or not there is good and there is evil and there is a man upstairs who has a plan that while we may not know it we can be assured that all things, even in the pit of the various hells on this present earth, yes all things do work for the good of those called according to his purpose. He brings forth water from rocks and bread from heaven and you and me from the dust of the earth, stitching us together in our mothers’ wombs.

So let not your heart be troubled. The sun still shines. The smiles are still there. The good graces between neighbors still exist. Bad things will always and have always happened. But love and good and right prevail even in the madness of the present age.

The second, an open Facebook letter to the younger brother who was captured in Boston, by a Jesuit seminarian, Mike Rogers: Dear Dzhokhar

Thank you, gentlemen for reminding us of the reason why we celebrate this season of Christ's victory over death.

+AMDG+