shooting at the the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown CT

I have known M. Regina Cram since high school. Her family is like my second family. The same is true for my husband. He came to know Reg first while I was friendly with her older sister Ginny first. We have all been through a lot of weddings, funerals, tragedies and births together. And all throughout those years we sang together, going through the meticulous journal of songs that Reg and Ginny kept.

I’ve known that Reg has written a regular monthly column for the Catholic Transcript, the official newspaper for the Hartford, CT diocese. Secretly I dreamed of her writing a book. And she finally did! It’s called Do Bad Guys Wear Socks? Living the Gospel in Everyday Life. I’m taking my time reading it because it is so enjoyable and someday soon I will review the book and feature an interview with Reg.

In the meantime, here’s a taste of what this book offers, from her current column in the Catholic Transcript:

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Six words. That’s all. Six simple words, but each time I uttered them, my throat tightened and my eyes burned.

“Tierney and Andrew live in Newtown.”

These six words brought me to tears many times that first week after a shooter massacred 26 people in an elementary school in Newtown, also killing his mother and, at the end, himself. Our daughter Tierney and her husband Andrew settled in Newtown after their wedding a year ago. Andrew grew up there. His family lives in town. His brother went to school with the gunman.

A few days after the shootings, I came across a familiar Bible verse. “For God so loved the world that he sent his only son . . . ”

In the light of the shootings, the verse rankled me. I mean, seriously? God loves the whole world? Everyone? He loves a man who slaughtered 20 babies and the educators who tried to protect them? Jesus died for someone like that?

You can read the article in its entirety here.

I also wrote something about Newtown which you can read here. I wish now I too had included the killer.

Click to Tweet & Share: Mercy for the merciless – a guest column by my good friend, M. Regina Cram http://wp.me/p2D9hg-nu

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Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice! So says Saint Paul in the fourth chapter of Philippians.

Each reading this third Sunday of Advent proclaimed joy:

Shout for joy, daughter Zion!
sing joyfully, Israel!
Be glad and exult with all your heart,
daughter Jerusalem! (Zephaniah 13:4)

Shout with exultation, City of Zion,
for great in your midst
is the Holy One of Israel! (Isaiah 12:6)

Amidst a sea of somber purple, the rose-colored candle was lit on the Advent wreath; a sign of joyful expectation for the Lord’s coming as Christmas day draws near.

Yet why does my heart not rejoice? Why is it that a mist hangs heavily over so many?

We all know why. A modern version of the slaughter of the Holy Innocents took place that past Friday in an idyllic, close-knit Connecticut town.

It was senseless and cruel when Herod ordered the original deed in his irrational desire to destroy the Christ Child. The first chapter of Exodus described the Pharaoh’s heartless decree to drown infant boys in his quest to slay the baby Moses.

And it is just as incomprehensible, just as heart-wrenching now knowing those twenty precious little children between the ages of six and seven, and six courageous women died an equally terrible death. Watching their families and friends in Newtown, CT careen from terror to shock and finally, to a grief so deep that it feels bottomless casts a pall over a joyful holiday. There appears to be no consolation.

And yet we were called to be joyful this Gaudate Sunday. We are expected to celebrate Christmas morning with our families while others will have unopened presents under the tree and an empty space at the dinner table.

I try to picture the children and the heroic adults who attempted to save them in the arms of Jesus, hovering over their families like the angels they are, trying to impart some consolation.

Will their loved ones be able to know it? To feel it?

The Christian faith teaches us that God is nearest in those moments when we cannot find the words or process the feelings or even lift our heads in our grief.

I think of Jesus at the Garden of Gethsame, begging for consolation from His Heavenly Father and the angels coming to minister to Him. He knew His Father was listening and therefore could experience their consolation.

All those new angels in Heaven are waiting and ready to offer that same consolation to their grieving loved ones.

Jesus calls on us to be alert, awake and ready: prepared to see Him at any turn.

I dig deep to pray that these grieving people will be able to recognize God in their midst and thus experience the ministering presence of their angels who long to offer consolation.

Grief is an opportunity, a moment of supreme and sublime vulnerability. It can be a time of transformation if we allow ourselves to be carried on the journey. It is tumultuous, frightening and exceedingly painful. If we are open, we can find that joy that Saint Paul talks about beneath the hurt. Slowly, gently, this joy can be the healing balm.

The newest angels up in Heaven are ready and waiting to apply the balm. The rose-colored candle in the Advent wreath can be the sign of their consolation.

So I will pray these grieving parents, siblings and husbands will be ready to receive that consolation and I invite you to do the same.

Click to Tweet & Share: Solace in the rose-colored candle: a prayer for the 26 Innocents of Newtown, CT http://wp.me/p2D9hg-kk

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