Walking With God in the Aftermath

Walking with God in the Aftermath

Mary Regina Morrell

Evil exists.

There's no doubt about it

Our history books are filled with the often unthinkable horrors that have been perpetrated person against person because evil had overtaken the human heart and soul.

But now, in the aftermath of September 11, the horror has become real in New York, in Washington, D.C., in Pennsylvania, across the nation, around the world. It was on our televisions. We watched it. We felt it. Our lives have been changed forever because of it.

The deaths of so many thousands of people are not just statistics in some history book. There are names and faces to go with the numbers and many of them belong to people we knew and loved.

Today we are faced with the same challenge the Apostles faced after Jesus was crucified, the same challenge that individuals and communities have faced whenever a holocaust wiped out millions of innocent people, the same challenge families face when someone they love is murdered or beaten or maimed.

How do we keep walking with God when there is no way to make sense of the senseless?

How do we keep walking with God when we are carrying so much pain?

I think the key lies in the words of a famous hymn:

We walk by faith and not by sight. . .

The Apostles spent three years walking with Christ and during that time they saw in his demeanor and his actions, his prayer life and his words the powerful call to peace. They heard the words of their Lord when he spoke to the great crowds who had gathered for the Sermon on the Mount kind of like the crowds who gather for outdoor concerts today except the only music was the voice of Jesus.

It was then that they heard Jesus say, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

Peacemakers.

Now thats a real challenge especially when we are hurt and filled with anger. But that is what we are called to be, one person at a time changing one heart at a time if thats all we can do. Its in the heart that peace has its beginning. Thats why we need the Grace of God, his help to make what seems impossible, possible. Thats why we need prayer.

The Apostle Paul had seen the effects of the peaceful, prayerful heart of Christ, the man who loved the world into goodness through his death. Paul later wrote to the community of the Romans and told them what he had learned from Jesus: "Do not be overcome by evil, but rather overcome evil with good."

To respond to evil with evil, to become people of rage, would be to become less than God calls us to be. We cannot change the evil that ripped thousands of lives apart on September 11, but if we answer Jesus call to be people of peace, youth committed to a peaceful world, we can continue to walk with God in faith and hope and love.

Martin Luther King once said that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. He was a wise man. If we are not at peace with each other in our homes, in our schools and in our workplaces we cannot be at peace in our communities, in our nation or with other countries.

So what should we do now?

Make peace one prayer and one person at a time.

___________________________

Mary Morrell is the Associate Director of the Office of Religious Education for the Diocese of Metuchen, NJ, and the mother of six sons. She is also the author of Angels in High Top Sneakers from Loyola Press; Things My Father Taught Me, a bi-weekly column that appears in several Catholic newspapers, I'll Walk With God, a monthly newsletter published by the Metuchen Diocesan Office of Religious Education, and a writer for Real Faith TV, produced by the Diocese of Trenton, Office of Communication.

Contact

Diocese of Metuchen
http://www.diometuchen.org NJ, US
Mary Morrell - Associate Director, Office of Religious Education, 732 562-1990

Email

mmorrell@diometuchen.org

Keywords

God

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