In a homily delivered at a Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral this week, the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, told the terror-stricken faithful that they have two options with which to deal with the stress of terror – the “tranquilizers” of this world of the “God of life”.
CNA/EWTN is reporting on the Nov. 15 homily in which the Cardinal addressed the uncertainty and grief surrounding last week’s terror attacks while celebrating Mass for the victims of the Nov. 13 assault that left 129 dead and more than 300 wounded.
“It’s an understatement to say that the savage killings of this black Friday have plunged entire families into deep distress,” the Cardinal said. “And this anxiety is all the more profound when there aren’t any rational explanations that would justify the indiscriminate execution of dozens of people they didn’t even know.”
The attacks of November 13 are also a poignant reminder of the inescapable reality that “whether close or far off…our existence is marked by death. We can try to forget it, get around it, to want to soften and lighten it, but it’s there,” he said.
“We don’t know the day or the hour of our own end, and not knowing this troubles a lot of people. But we all see – and what happened this week reminds us cruelly, that death’s work never ends and sometimes strikes blindly.”
Who should we turn to for help in this dark time?
The cardinal proposed two options – the “tranquilizers” of this world or “the God of life.”
Even though we can’t fully understand the evil that happens in this life, we can gain strength in the fact of these trials “from our confidence in God and our ability to rely on him.”
“So we can’t allow ourselves to be stopped by the misfortunes of life or the suffering that we’re enduring, as if this had no meaning. Through them, we can discover that God is knocking on our door and wants to call us again to life, and open up to us the ways of life,” he said.
“This confidence in God is a light on the journey of life,” he said and encouraged the congregation to “put our trust in God, who is the God of life.”
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