There will be tribulation but there is Jesus. It is what I keep hearing as I pray for the victims in the Sandy Hook School tragedy. We are struggling to comprehend how this can happen. But just today, there is an article that says that mass killings happen once every two weeks in the United States. How can that be true? The report says that many of them go unreported. The Sandy Hook murders grabbed our collective attention because it involved innocent children. But all murdered victims are innocent. Including those killed by abortion. This is not another politicized statement about what happened in Newtown. It is statement of the fact that we as a nation have lost our moral way. When there is not right or wrong then we struggle to maintain our civility. When we prevent people from praying and instead, bully them into thinking they cannot talk about God in "public" places, we only cause confusion in a world that is already filled with chaos. So where do we go from here? I say go to Jesus. He understands how we are feeling because he loves us so deeply that he died for us. Talk with his mother, Mary as well. She knows the pain of the loss of a child. God does bring comfort to those in need. There was a story about one of the staff at Sandy Hook who survived the shooting. She says that she spent the entirety of the ordeal in a closet with two other people and they prayed the Lord's Prayer out loud; in a public school no less. Let's lift our voices in prayer for all of the families in the world who are suffering because of violence. This tragedy should definitely motivate us to effect change.
Kurt Hilgefort, is a Catholic father of six who publishes his thoughts on his blog Shadows of Augustine . He responded to my seven question survey with the following answers. Kurt is the first layperson to respond to the seven question survey and I think that his experience is extremely relevant to me personally and I hope that you are inspired by his thoughts as well. If you would like to respond, please send an email to fellmananthony@gmail.com with your thoughts and I will be happy to publish them as well. 1. What is the biggest challenge to your faith that you have faced so far? The biggest challenge for me has been the whole dying to self thing. On an intellectual level, there are no barriers. It comes down to a matter of accepting the authority of the Church that Christ founded upon Peter. My challenge is not in the intellect, but rather in the will. The challenge for me has always been to continually seek conversion. I want to be transformed, but I want it to be over all ...
