“Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”
There are some things in the face of which I am all but speechless. The slaughter of children is one of them. What can one possibly say?
I long for a world in which such things are rare. We do not live in such a world. Whether it is by tyrants ordering mass killings or by lunatics opening fire on school children, too often in the past several years the massacre of innocents has been headline news.
If we are not friends or relatives, we allow the parents of these children to fade from our thoughts. Perhaps today would be a good time to hold them in our prayers all day long.
For the parents of the slaughtered young people at Virginia Tech, at Sandy Hook, at Columbine High School, in Rio de Janeiro, at Umpqua Community College, in Red Lake, Minnesota, in the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, in Jerusalem, in Palestine, at Oikos University, in Isla Vista, California, in Marysville, Washington, and in all other places around the world where such massacres have occurred, and
For the relatives of those murdered in incidents of genocide in Darfur, Syria, Iraq, Rwanda, Bosnia, and all other places around the world where people are killed for being who they are,
We pray. Heal the eyes that have seen unspeakable things, the ears that have heard their children’s unbearable torment, throats that have cried out in anguish, hearts that have been ripped apart and stomachs churning with impotent rage. Bear their suffering with them and help them to see it through, to a day when they find the glimmerings of peace and the stirrings of new hope.
In the name of the one who recognizes us in the depths of all our afflictions, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Laurie Gudim is a religious iconographer and writer who lives with her partner of 30 years and her sister in Fort Collins, Colorado. Some of her icons can be seen at http://everydaymysteries.com/, and check out her novel, a progressive Christian story, at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074G137V8/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Image: Feast of the Holy Innocents