God’s Hand is in all that happens. It is not a coincidence that the Gospel reading for September 11 was this passage from Luke in which Jesus talks about forgiving our enemies. Seven years ago, the unimaginable, horrific thing happened when our nation was struck by terrorists and thousands died. The day was bright and sunny, not a cloud in the sky. Then the horror took place. But this Gospel says it all. Despite the terror, the horror, the destruction that defies words, the Lord still expects us to love our enemies. Imagine that! We have the only faith in the world that would say that we need to love those who boarded airplanes and drove them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and killed thousands of people in one day. We have the only religion in the world that says to love those people!

We don’t have to like them. But we have to love them. What does that mean? It means that you want their salvation. The Lord wants their salvation as much He wants our salvation. If He didn’t want their salvation, He would not want ours. From the cross, Jesus looked at the people and loved them. Now loving does not mean that you don’t defend yourself. It does not mean that you let them hurt you. It does mean that you pray for those people, all those who would think that God would be so angry with someone that He would want to kill someone. What a deception! We have to pray for people who believe that.

On thats national day of sadness, we need to pray for those who are lost, for those who were left, for the family members. But we also must pray for those who commit these horrible acts and for those who are considering doing something like that so that God’s grace would penetrate their souls and they would see the horror of it. May God open their hearts to God’s grace for that Grace is more powerful than anything else. But we must love and forgive those who committed this horror and who commit other horrors, for we must wish that they will be saved. The Lord loves them as much as He loves us. If He didn’t, we would have to say, “How can He love us for we are sinners?”

God love you,
Father Finelli