Hope from disaster

My dear Friends
We are coming up to the tenth anniversary of 9/11.It was a terrible tragedy at the time.I spent the afternoon with my landlady and her daughter, a Vicar's wife, who had come up from Kent. She observed that 'there's always Redemption.' God can always bring good out of evil, although it can take a while.

I was mulling this over when I went to the large Catholic church in Cambridge the Sunday after 9/11 happened. I went with a young american friend of mine, who was to become my goddaughter. The church was packed. Fr Tony Rodgers, the Parish priest, gave a fine sermon. He said that the day after the tragedy people saw something going on around the area that it happened but they couldn't quite make out what it was. So they drew nearer and discovered that a group of people were dancing...for the joy of living.

I went to church all that week. I seemed to feel the arms of Mary, our universal Mother, around me. It occcured to me that she was holding the whole world in an embrace, and i remembered that one of her designations is Our lady of Sorrows, to be in solidarity with us when we are suffering, just like her son.

Let us hope and pray that the anniversary at the weekend passes without violence or bloodshed, just in quiet remembrance.

Shalom from
Sister Gila