Today during the Holy Mass a prayer was offered for the people of Belgium. Such indifferent carnage is not fathomable by any civilized state of being. No God no person no tribe or nation can rightfully claim innocence and rightness in the wholesale murder of civilians, non combatants, children or innocents. Violence is upon the earth and roaming like wrath in the night. If is the fuel of Satan that feeds our fears, our nightmares, or darkness. Such violence is the fuel of bigotry, hatred, and isolation.
Today a prayer was said and was it for nothing? No, it brought notice, it brought the conversation into sacred space for the ears of God and of God’s people. What have we done? Are we the innocents in all of this. Is it our conspicuous consumption and indifference to the state of the world that has brought us to this place of fear and loathing? Is it perhaps our national pride? Perhaps, but maybe not.
I cannot even imagine what transpires in the minds of those that are “radicalized”. That word is a word alien to me until this 21st century. Radicalized means what and how does such happen? All faiths have a past history that bears remorse and repentance. “Gott mit uns” were on the buckles of of soldiers in WWI. Start with prayer and read the Song of Mary before deciding how we Christians should respond. Our history in this world has fueled enough religious wars. That said, we cannot forsake our vigilance against terror but vigilance without hubris against an entire peoples is, I believe, what our Lord would truly ask of us. Specific vigilance, specific defense, specific prayers for those who have lost any sense of true faith. All things should always start with prayer and to embed deeply in our hearts the truth of the Living God.