***Please Note: This Homily was given off-the-cuff,
and the text below represents my best attempt to reconstruct what was said***
This past week as I was looking over the readings for this Sunday, and praying on what the Lord wanted me to preach on, I was led to talk about the end of the world and the end of our life, and how we view death, either as a thief who steals our life, or as a messenger who announces to us the news that the Bridegroom of our souls is ready to greet us at the end of our life.
But as I turned on the news on Friday afternoon, and learned what all of you have since learned through the television, newspaper, or radio, about the terrorist attacks by ISIS in Paris and Beirut, as well as the martyring of 147 Christians in Kenya by El Shabab, the homily I wrote didn't seem as fitting.
When horrible events like the ones we have heard or read about around the world this weekend, we can feel helpless and wonder what we can do in the face of such hatred and violence. It seems so overwhelming, and we feel so small. But we are not helpless, and there are ways that we can respond to these tragedies.
The first thing that we can do is to affirm that God never, ever asks a person to do violence in His Name. Pope St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict, and Pope Francis have all reaffirmed recently that such acts are contrary to God's nature, and God would never invite a person to do violence in His Name. In Jesus, God revealed that He is Love, and that He would rather die for our sins than have us suffer any violence due to sin.
The second thing we can do is pray for peace and justice. We have come together to pray today. Our Mass prayers today are from the Mass for the Preservation of Peace and Justice. So we come together at this Mass and we ask God to give us peace: the peace of Christ which is His Easter gift; the peace of God which is not the mere cessation of violence, but which is wholeness. We come together at this Mass to pray for justice, because injustice is so often the cause of violence and terror. We pray that God will give us His peace and His justice.
The third thing that we can do to work against evil is to be people of peace and justice. If we wish to have peace in our world, we must be peaceful people. When we are people of peace in our families, with friends, in our workplace, on the road, and with everyone we meet, God's peace spreads to those people, who can spread it to those they know, and so peace spreads. Peace, like love, is diffusive: it seeks to spread itself. If we wish to have justice in our world, then we must be people of justice, people who give others the respect and dignity that they deserve as human beings created in the image and likeness of God. When we are people of justice in our families, with friends, in our workplace, on the road, and with everyone we meet, God's justice spreads.
In the face of such horrific attacks, we can feel like there is nothing that we can do. But we can respond by praying for peace and justice, and working for peace in justice in our own life. In those ways, we will promote peace in our communities and in our world.
