Forwarding this as 'australasia' # 175. I think it is well worth a read.
Thanks Tony.
-----Original Message-----
From: Anthony Bailey <mondonio@email.msn.com>
To: RuaLink <mjcsdb@msn.com>
Date: Sunday, April 25, 1999 11:31 PM
Subject: Colombine High School
>ENDING THE VIOLENCE BEGINS WITH OUR OWN CONVERSION
>BY MOST REVEREND CHARLES J. CHAPUT, OFMCap
>Archbishop of Denver
>{This article will appear in the April 28 edition of the Denver Catholic
>Register. Through the courtesy of Archbishop Chaput, permission to
reproduce
>this article has been granted to CWN and to all other interested parties.}
>
>He descended into hell.
>Over a lifetime of faith, each of us, as believers, recites those words
from
>the Creed thousands of times. We may not understand them, but they're
>familiar. They're routine. And then something happens to show us what
they
>really mean.
>Watching a disaster unfold for your community in the glare of the
>international mass media is terrible and unreal at the same time. Terrible
>in its bloody cost; unreal in its brutal disconnection from daily life.
The
>impact of what happened this past week in Littleton, however, didn't fully
>strike home in my heart until the morning after the murders, when I visited
>a large prayer gathering of students from Columbine High School, and spent
>time with the families of two of the students who died.
>They taught me something.
>The students who gathered to pray and comfort each other showed me again
the
>importance of sharing not just our sorrow, but our hope. God created us to
>witness His love to each other, and we draw our life from the friendship,
>the mercy and the kindness we offer to others in pain. The young Columbine
>students I listened to, spoke individually-one by one-of the need to be
>strong, to keep alive hope in the future, and to turn away from violence.
>Despite all their confusion and all their hurt, they would not despair. I
>think I understand why. We're creatures of life. This is the way God made
>us: to assert life in the face of death.
>Even more moving was my time with the families of two students who had been
>murdered. In the midst of their great suffering - a loss I can't imagine -
>the parents radiated a dignity which I will always remember, and a
>confidence that God would somehow care for them and the children they had
>lost, no matter how fierce their pain. This is where words break down.
>This is where you see, up close, that faith - real, living faith-is rooted
>finally not in how smart, or affluent, or successful, or sensitive persons
>are, but in how well they love. Scripture says that "love is as strong as
>death." I know it is stronger. I saw it.
>As time passes, we need to make sense of the Columbine killings. The media
>are already filled with "sound bites" of shock and disbelief;
psychologists,
>sociologists, grief counselors and law enforcement officers-all with their
>theories and plans. God bless them for it. We certainly need help.
>Violence is now pervasive in American society - in our homes, our schools,
>on our streets, in our cars as we drive home from work, in the news media,
>in the rhythms and lyrics of our music, in our novels, films and video
>games. It is so prevalent that we have become largely unconscious of it.
>But, as we discover in places like the hallways of Columbine High, it is
>bitterly, urgently real.
>The causes of this violence are many and complicated: racism, fear,
>selfishness. But in another, deeper sense, the cause is very simple: We're
>losing God, and in losing Him, we're losing ourselves. The complete
>contempt for human life shown by the young killers at Columbine is not an
>accident, or an anomaly, or a freak flaw in our social fabric. It's what
we
>create when we live a contradiction. We can't systematically kill the
>unborn, the infirm and the condemned prisoners among us; we can't glorify
>brutality in our entertainment; we can't market avarice and greed . . . and
>then hope that somehow our children will help build a culture of life.
>We need to change. But societies only change when families change, and
>families only change when individuals change. Without a conversion to
>humility, non-violence and selflessness in our own hearts, all our talk
>about "ending the violence" may end as pious generalities. It is not
enough
>to speak about reforming our society and community. We need to reform
>ourselves.
>Two questions linger in the aftermath of the Littleton tragedy. How could
a
>good God allow such savagery? And why did this happen to us?
>In regard to the first: God gave us the gift of freedom, and if we are
free,
>we are free to do terrible, as well as marvelous, things . . . And we must
>also live with the results of others' freedom. But God does not abandon us
>in our freedom, or in our suffering. This is the meaning of the cross, the
>meaning of Jesus' life and death, the meaning of He descended into hell.
>God spared His only Son no suffering and no sorrow-so that He would know
and
>understand and share everything about the human heart. This is how
fiercely
>He loves us.
>In regard to the second: Why not us? Why should evil be at home in faraway
>places like Kosovo and Sudan, and not find its way to Colorado? The human
>heart is the same everywhere - and so is the One for whom we yearn.
>He descended into hell. The Son of God descended into hell . . . and so
>have we all, over the past few days. But that isn't the end of the story.
>On the third day, He rose again from the dead. Jesus Christ is Lord, "the
>resurrection and the life," and we - His brothers and sisters - are
children
>of life. When we claim that inheritance, seed it in our hearts, and
conform
>our lives to it, then and only then will the violence in our culture begin
>to be healed.
>In this Easter season and throughout the coming months, I ask you to join
me
>in praying in a special way for the families who have been affected by the
>Columbine tragedy. But I also ask you to pray that each of us - including
>myself - will experience a deep conversion of heart toward love and
>non-violence in all our relationships with others.
>
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