Our Lady of Manchester, pray for us!Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDSPope Francis has expressed deep sadness over the terrorist attack that claimed 22 lives at a concert in Manchester, England last evening, while the local church condemned the attack and is invoking Our Lady of Manchester to pray for the victims.
“In Ramah is heard the sound of moaning, of bitter weeping! Rachel mourns her children, she refuses to be consoled because her children are no more.” -- Jer. 31:15
In my bifurcated mind in that most horrific moment, I wondered who was slaughtering an animal in our back yard until I realized the piercing cries were coming from myself – a mother’s intense grief in learning that her only son had been killed in a vehicular accident shortly after his return from Iraq. It was then the Scripture passage quoted above entered into my left-brain to inform my right – “This is what it means in Scripture when its says Rachel wails for her children who are no more.” I am Rachel.
Today, all of Manchester, as well as the greater part of the civilized world, mourns the loss of the young girls and teens who were brutally injured and savagely murdered by the attack of a suicide bomber who, I feel certain, was aimed at taking out those who would bring the next generation to life.
