Cardinal Dolan: Silence provides strongest message for Newtown tragedy
We’ve said a lot about the tragedy. It’s just that we haven’t used many words.
By Timothy Cardinal Dolan / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, December 17, 2012
EnidAlvarez/NewYorkDailyNews
Cardinal Timothy Dolan leads Mass at St. Patricks Cathedral on Fifth Avenue on New York, NY on Sunday, November 4, 2012.
It’s perhaps the most frequent comment one hears from people when asked about the Newtown massacre: “I just don't know what to say . . .”
That’s actually a rather profound observation. As Pope Benedict remarked during a 2006 visit to Auschwitz, “In a place like this, words fail. In the end, there can only be a dread silence — a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this? . . . Yet our silence becomes in turn a plea for forgiveness and reconciliation, a plea to the living God never to let this happen again.”
In fact, we’ve said a lot about the tragedy. It’s just that we haven’t used many words. St. Francis of Assisi used to remind his followers, “Preach always. And, only if you have to, use words.”
Yes, that blessed, stricken town has said a lot, as have all of us, even though, “We don’t know what to say.” Tears, embraces, silence and whispered, clumsy prayers really all speak louder than words.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta noted that, at the saddest moment in human history — the death of Jesus on that hill called Calvary — there stood Mary at the foot of His cross. And the Gospels record her saying . . . nothing. She just had to be there, with her suffering, dying son. Sob she did; speak she did not. Yet, anyone who has spent time in front of Michelangelo’s renowned Pieta at the Vatican, and who has looked at her face gazing at the broken body of her only child, knows that her heart spoke volumes
The only thing that has flowed more than the blood of those beautiful children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and the adults who gave their lives trying to stop the horrific violence, has been the tears of all of us who love them and their families from afar.
We Catholics traditionally recall a rather eerie, somber, chilling episode from the Bible every year in an otherwise upbeat, radiant, joyful Christmas holiday season. It’s found in the Gospel of St. Matthew (2:16-18), where the sinful, jealous, paranoid King Herod ordered the death of all the baby boys in the quiet neighborhood of Bethlehem, plotting to murder this rumored “newborn king” who could, he feared, be a rival to his power. We refer to those little babies as “the Holy Innocents,” and reverently recall them every Dec. 28, their feast day. St. Matthew the Evangelist, in relating this chilling episode, himself recalls the words of the prophet Jeremiah, “A voice was heard . . . sobbing and loudly lamenting: It was Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because they were no more.”
The hundreds of “Rachels” in Newtown weep for their “Holy Innocents,” and we stand with Mary at the foot of their cross. “We don’t know what to say,” so we simply pray with and for them, we emotionally embrace them, and admit that perhaps what we all need most right now is that “Silent Night,” when the piercing cold became warm with love and the darkness radiant with angelic light, and a baby was born to bring peace and eternal life.
Dolan is the archbishop of New York
That’s actually a rather profound observation. As Pope Benedict remarked during a 2006 visit to Auschwitz, “In a place like this, words fail. In the end, there can only be a dread silence — a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this? . . . Yet our silence becomes in turn a plea for forgiveness and reconciliation, a plea to the living God never to let this happen again.”
In fact, we’ve said a lot about the tragedy. It’s just that we haven’t used many words. St. Francis of Assisi used to remind his followers, “Preach always. And, only if you have to, use words.”
Yes, that blessed, stricken town has said a lot, as have all of us, even though, “We don’t know what to say.” Tears, embraces, silence and whispered, clumsy prayers really all speak louder than words.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta noted that, at the saddest moment in human history — the death of Jesus on that hill called Calvary — there stood Mary at the foot of His cross. And the Gospels record her saying . . . nothing. She just had to be there, with her suffering, dying son. Sob she did; speak she did not. Yet, anyone who has spent time in front of Michelangelo’s renowned Pieta at the Vatican, and who has looked at her face gazing at the broken body of her only child, knows that her heart spoke volumes
The only thing that has flowed more than the blood of those beautiful children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and the adults who gave their lives trying to stop the horrific violence, has been the tears of all of us who love them and their families from afar.
We Catholics traditionally recall a rather eerie, somber, chilling episode from the Bible every year in an otherwise upbeat, radiant, joyful Christmas holiday season. It’s found in the Gospel of St. Matthew (2:16-18), where the sinful, jealous, paranoid King Herod ordered the death of all the baby boys in the quiet neighborhood of Bethlehem, plotting to murder this rumored “newborn king” who could, he feared, be a rival to his power. We refer to those little babies as “the Holy Innocents,” and reverently recall them every Dec. 28, their feast day. St. Matthew the Evangelist, in relating this chilling episode, himself recalls the words of the prophet Jeremiah, “A voice was heard . . . sobbing and loudly lamenting: It was Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because they were no more.”
The hundreds of “Rachels” in Newtown weep for their “Holy Innocents,” and we stand with Mary at the foot of their cross. “We don’t know what to say,” so we simply pray with and for them, we emotionally embrace them, and admit that perhaps what we all need most right now is that “Silent Night,” when the piercing cold became warm with love and the darkness radiant with angelic light, and a baby was born to bring peace and eternal life.
Dolan is the archbishop of New York
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/cardinal-dolan-silence-strongest-message-newtown-tragedy-article-1.1222350#ixzz2FSwg3PlZ
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