Homily after Florida School Shootings, Thursday after Ash Wednesday!

I was asked to type out my homily for today, but not sure this is really what I said.  It was one of those inspired days and my second liturgy had a much deeper message, even through I set out to repeat what I had said in the morning.   I felt numb this morning, more people dead.  Another young person takes the lives of others and this person doesn’t even seem to have any guilt.  More senseless shootings.  The Gospel talks about putting the needs of this world behind.  We are called to put the needs of others first.  The one that saves their life will lose it.  The literally happened yesterday.  Ash Wednesday and Lent call us to reflection and looking at our relationship with God.  People have a tendancy to question God’s will when things like this happen, but God does not do these things to us.

Some people say, “well all we can do is pray.”  All we can do?  It is the first thing we should do.  How can we cope with out prayer?  What hope to we have without prayer?

Your Will be done

When we pray “Your will be done” we are praying that we are living up to our God given potential, that we are being the presence of God in this world.  For the life of me, I would love to make sense of this.  I can’t.  My brother posted on line and used the word simple and there is nothing simple about this.  There is of course a mental health issue with this and with how we deal with those that take life like this, but how can we stop this?  How can we know what God is calling us to do, how do we know God’s will.  That is the most simple part of this, to know these things we pray.

Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we make a commitment to do our best to do God’s will.  We promise to be God’s presence in the world.  We promise to make a difference.  How do we help those grieving in Florida?  All I know is that it starts with prayer.  Prayer for them and prayer for insight into what God’s will is for us.

Sutherland Springs

After Sutherland Springs, I started a process to look at this issue and start get some of the smartest people I know to start evaluating what we can do to change this culture.  We will have something to email out as a framework for this process in the next week or two and will meet the end of March when I get back from the Holy Land.

This will all be done with open minds and not fixated on any one case.  Who/what is the enemy?  Why now? What do we do?  That is over simplified, but what we are going to try and put together and get it to Archbishop Gustavo and some politicians that we know!

If you want input, comment below and I will let you know how to participate.

Everyone, please pray!  We need to be God’s agents in this world.  He is the Prince of peace and has left us to bring that peace to our world.