A Sunday Thought About the Navy Yard Shootings
We all saw the news this past week. A man shot and killed 13 people, and wounded more, at a Navy Yard in D.C. These sorts of incidents seem to be in the increase. (Are they really? I don't know.) Each is shocking. As Catholics we pray for the victims and their families.
But one more thing we ought to do as Catholics is to remember how our lives here on earth not only pass quickly but may end instantly. I was looking through some notes I saved from the postings of a Benedictine Abbot, now deceased, and stumbled on this comment - one he made years before this shooting and unrelated to this sort of incident:
The looming presence of Death must lie at the center of our lives as Catholics. Indeed, the Church teaches, in her eternal wisdom, that we ought to meditate on the "Four Last Things,": Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell. (Of course, you'd never know it these days. It's been pushed off to the side by the modernists who've decided that much of our tradition is somehow old, outdated, if not outright wrong - but that's a discussion for another time.)
And yet most of us focus all our attention - day after day after day - on this world. We strive to succeed in this world, to acquire things, to build our careers, to make a name for ourselves. Some of us want to be rich, to be powerful. We plan and scheme and put our time and energy into the accomplishment of such goals and objectives.
And where is God? Where is He Who created us and all the world? Why do we go about almost as if He doesn't exist - even us "good" Catholics?
And so the shootings drive home to us the imminence of our own death. By God's grace, we will wake up and live in the present moment, doing His Holy Will, prepared for that moment when we meet Him as Judge. It's simply one of the basic tenets of our Holy Faith.
For those who died in the shootings we pray for their eternal rest.
But one more thing we ought to do as Catholics is to remember how our lives here on earth not only pass quickly but may end instantly. I was looking through some notes I saved from the postings of a Benedictine Abbot, now deceased, and stumbled on this comment - one he made years before this shooting and unrelated to this sort of incident:
Think of the fact that all of us are living one split second away from death and judgment. All of us are one instant, one heart failure, one explosion, one gunshot, one accident, away from meeting our Eternal Judge - one instant away from answering to Him for how we spent our life. "The day of the Lord shall so come as a thief in the night." (Thess. 5:2)It hit me squarely between the eyes: Fool! You've lived for so long with only an occasional thought about Death and Judgment. And you cal your self a Catholic?
The looming presence of Death must lie at the center of our lives as Catholics. Indeed, the Church teaches, in her eternal wisdom, that we ought to meditate on the "Four Last Things,": Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell. (Of course, you'd never know it these days. It's been pushed off to the side by the modernists who've decided that much of our tradition is somehow old, outdated, if not outright wrong - but that's a discussion for another time.)
And yet most of us focus all our attention - day after day after day - on this world. We strive to succeed in this world, to acquire things, to build our careers, to make a name for ourselves. Some of us want to be rich, to be powerful. We plan and scheme and put our time and energy into the accomplishment of such goals and objectives.
And where is God? Where is He Who created us and all the world? Why do we go about almost as if He doesn't exist - even us "good" Catholics?
And so the shootings drive home to us the imminence of our own death. By God's grace, we will wake up and live in the present moment, doing His Holy Will, prepared for that moment when we meet Him as Judge. It's simply one of the basic tenets of our Holy Faith.
For those who died in the shootings we pray for their eternal rest.
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