I’d like to share an article with you about the Sandy Hook school tragedy that was carried in the December 18 edition of the Vatican newspaper, “l’Osservatore Romano.” It was written by Fr. Robert Imbelli of the archdiocese of New York, professor of theology at Boston College.

“We are all deeply affected by the unspeakable tragedy that occurred Friday in Newtown. A lovely sun-lit late Fall day turned suddenly cold and bitter. President Obama’s silence and tears that evening spoke more movingly than any words could…..or can.

“Believing Christians have been given the great gift of the rhythms of the liturgical year to provide some guidance and orientation for our questioning minds and troubled hearts. These rhythms help us to face and endure the hopes and joys, the sorrows and sufferings of our common humanity. In Advent we look forward with joy to the celebration of the Lord’s birth.

But we well know that violence is not a stranger to that birth. The very day after Christmas the Church celebrates St Stephen, the first martyr; and, two days later, on 28 December, we remember the Holy Innocents — whether in Bethlehem or sadly this year in Newtown. As the liturgy laments: Rachel is mourning for her children for they are no more.

“The figure of John the Baptist looms over our liturgy this morning: the precursor of Christ, both in life and in death. Two thousand years ago John the Baptist is the voice crying in the wilderness: “be converted — God’s rule is at hand!”. He repeats that cry today.

“The Gospel of life always contends with the forces of death and of evil. Pope John Paul II often warned us of an encroaching ‘culture of death’ in our society. He himself experienced both physical and verbal violence. Some in the Church thought him too excessive, too extreme in his rhetoric. By what else are we to call what we have experienced this week — this year — in our country?

“The Saturday after Thanksgiving I heard a radio announcer greet his audience with these words: “I hope your Black Friday shopping was a good Friday”. And I thought: No! Rampant, frantic consumerism, desiring and even fighting for some material item, is not Good Friday. Catering to the lust for consumption and possession is not good. Keeping vigil from midnight for perishable things is not soul-enhancing. Christmas does not begin the day after Thanksgiving. It only begins when all the Advent candles have been lit spiritually and the way of the Lord prepared in justice and in truth.

“This past Friday was the true black Friday. We pray that those whose lives have been forever changed by it may, with God’s grace, come, in time, through its terrible devastation to a renewal of life. Both the President and the Governor of Connecticut asked Friday for the support of our prayer. May that prayer not be just a fleeting “Hail Mary”. We are all members of Christ’s body: the suffering of one is the suffering of all. And we can strengthen one another spiritually even at a physical distance. Let us allow the sorrow and suffering of the people of Newtown to penetrate our prayer at this Eucharist — in the faith and hope that the light of Christ, Christ’s Mass, may shine again in the darkness. And that the darkness not overwhelm it.

“Let us pray too that the secular earth-bound calendar — wedded to death — may not prevail in our lives. But that Advent may raise our hearts to spiritual realities: generosity and praise, compassion and peace.”

”CHRISTMAS IN GOD’S HOUSE”

Because of its power, beauty and truth – and great aura of hope - I bring you again the poem circulating on the Internet, ascribed to Cameo Smith of Mt. Wolf, Pa.:

Twas’ 11 days before Christmas, around 9:38 am, when 20 beautiful children stormed through heaven’s gate, their smiles were contagious, their laughter filled the air. They could hardly believe all the beauty they saw there. They were filled with such joy, they didn’t know what to say. They remembered nothing of what had happened earlier that day. “Where are we?” asked a little girl, as quiet as a mouse. “This is heaven,” declared a small boy. “We’re spending Christmas at God’s house.” When what to their wondering eyes did appear, but Jesus, their savior, the children gathered near. He looked at them and smiled, and they smiled just the same. Then He opened His arms and He called them by name. And in that moment was joy, that only heaven can bring, those children all flew into the arms of their King, and as they lingered in the warmth of His embrace, one small girl turned and looked at Jesus’ face. And as if He could read all the questions she had He gently whispered to her, “I’ll take care of mom and dad,” Then He looked down on earth, the world far below He saw all of the hurt, the sorrow, and woe Then He closed His eyes and He outstretched His hand, “Let My power and presence re-enter this land!” “May this country be delivered from the hands of fools, “I’m taking back my nation. I’m taking back my schools!” Then He and the children stood up without a sound. “Come now my children, let me show you around.” Excitement filled the space, some skipped and some ran, all displaying enthusiasm that only a small child can. And I heard Him proclaim as He walked out of sight, “in the midst of this darkness, I AM STILL THE LIGHT!”

PEACE BUILT ON DIGNITY OF MAN, INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE

Pope Benedict’s Message for World Day of Peace on January 1, 2013 was released last week, as you know. Entitled “Blessed are the Peacemakers,” a portion of the messsage dealing with the institution of marriage was distorted by the media and Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, in his weekly editorial for Vatican radio, invited people to a careful and unprejudiced reading of the papal Message. Here is the Radio’s translation of the original Italian:

”Pope Benedict XVI has given us a rich and important document in his Message for the 2013 World Day of Peace – a message that many voices within the Italian media, in particular, have presented in an extremely partial and distorted way. This has happened because the Pope, in a short passage, returns to the vision of marriage between a man and a woman as profoundly different from radically other forms of union, and states that this difference is recognizable by human reason. Along with other fundamental principles of a correct view of person and society, primarily the dignity of all human life, we need to defend the institution of marriage if we would build peace on solid foundations and seek the good of human society with foresight. This is the view that the Church never tires of stressing, at a time when this point is being challenged and even attacked from several quarters in many different countries. This is all well known. It is not in the least surprising.

The reaction is therefore lacking in decent composure and sense of proportion: it consists in shouting, not in reasoning; it is intended to intimidate those who want to support this view freely in the public arena. Not only: such a reaction is meant to obscure many of the aspects of the Papal Message, which are of an extraordinary relevance and strength. These merit careful consideration and rather deserve to have our attention called to them. In times of rampant unemployment, the clear statement by the Pope of the right to work as essential to the dignity of the human person sounds like a cry of alarm, calling for a much deeper and more serious reflection on the transformation of “models of development” that have brought us to where we are – models from which those principles of fraternity and solidarity, are conspicuous by their absence, along with that spirit of grateful generosity, which alone can ensure that the economic, social and political spheres of life are ordered to the authentic human good.

The Pope also forcefully recalls that the food crisis is far more serious than the financial crisis: hunger continues to spread in the world and we forget too easily. Too many people are dying of hunger. Pope Benedict’s encyclical letter, Caritas in veritate, and John XXIII’s famous Pacem in terris, which will have its fiftieth anniversary soon, already guided us to engage in these directions.

In essence, the message says something urgent and essential for contemporary humanity, which should not be forgotten just because it also makes a reasonable case against and calls for opposition to “legal equivalence” between marriage – always and of its nature a union of one man and one woman – and “radically different forms of union”. We invite everyone to read the document in full, and objectively.”

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