Perfect through suffering October 8

For it was fitting that he, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the leader to their salvation perfect through suffering. Hebrews 2:10

“He embraced them and blessed them, placing his hands on them.” Mark 10:16

Piety

God, author of life, the suffering of those most vulnerable is hardest for us to understand. Babies. Girls. Poor. Children. Women. Elderly. We can not comprehend an evil that would do such harm to those who are weak and defenseless. Like Christ, they endure the suffering in order to be closer to you. Help the rest of us to imitate Christ and grow closer to you. Amen.

Study
http://www.usccb.org/nab/100806.shtml

Be childlike. The image today’s Good News leaves in my imagination is St. Peter welcoming adults to heaven in the way we popularly perceive the “pearly gates.” These adults are waiting on lines like you find at the airport or at a popular amusement park as they get instructions on heaven and any necessary equipment…you know like halos and wings.

But, over in the corner, a group of people seem to be scooting around the line and getting into Heaven faster – like someone inside has opened a secret side door, an express line just for them. That doesn’t seem fair. These other patient people on line have lived a full life and they shouldn’t have to wait any longer for their heavenly reward.

But wait! Look closely! Who has opened that door? None other than Jesus Himself. Who is he welcoming in with open arms? The children and the child-like who have suffered in this world like He suffered. He embraces them one by one. Jesus blesses them. He stretches out his hands and lays them on the top of each child’s head. This is their reward for total dependence upon and obedience to the gospel.

Action

The real images from the real news this week are almost harder to imagine. The reality of the suffering makes it hard to believe in anything but a television or movie sense. You hope that when the lights come back up, all will be right with the world.

It’s not only the violent nature that makes the weeks incidents hard to imagine. The fact – that Christians such as we allow them to go on – is hard to imagine.

Jane Niyonsenga, 12, took a drink from a cup her mother gave her, purchased near their home in Rwanda.

Marian Fisher,13, went to school in a small rural schoolhouse in Pennsylvania.

Dr Khaula al-Tallal came home from work where she was examining patients applying for a welfare program in Iraq’s holy city of Najaf.

None of these young women are alive today.

Jane died after drinking a contaminated beverage. She was at home with her 2 siblings, their mother and some friends in the Rulindo District of Rwanda. She died along with the two siblings aged 6 and 9, due to high levels of bacterial concentration in the water. The bacteria over-powered their immune system. A spokesman for the police attributed the incident to poverty given the destitute state of the family. [1] Without proper sanitizing, there was no way to kill the bacteria the way we would do by boiling water and cleaning cups and utensils.

Marian died when the milkman walked into her classroom in West Nickels Mine, PA, with guns and knives. The man held a group of ten girls hostage before shooting them all and then killing himself. Five of the girls, including Marian are dead. One more has been moved off life support while the others remain hospitalized. Marian pleaded for the man to kill her and spare the younger girls.

Dr. al-Tallal died in a stream of bullets as she walked toward her home after getting out of a taxi. She was a victim of a unique form of violence against working women. “Iraq's women are living with a fear that is increasing in line with the numbers dying violently every month. They die for being a member of the wrong sect and for helping their fellow women. They die for doing jobs that the militants have decreed that they cannot do: for working in hospitals and ministries and universities. They are murdered, too, because they are the softest targets for Iraq's criminal gangs.”[2]

How can we make the world safer for those who are most vulnerable?

[1] http://www.newtimes.co.rw/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8191&Itemid=26
[2] http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1890260,00.html