The murder of Benazir Bhutto, and its aftermath of escalating casualties, is yet another atrocity visited on a world where exponents of terrorism, political enmity and religious hatred, ruthlessly use the publicity value of random lethal violence. No political or religious goals can escape the searching scrutiny of human beings applying human values to that inhuman moral nihilism that not only sees human lives as dispensable, but considers the inflicted death of others an acceptable means to a desired end. I have no moral calculus that enables me to work out whatever mad logic or rogue religious devotion triggers such destructive hatred.
Yet nothing I can write here, nor the familiar rhetoric of outrage and appalled condemnation from politicians, is likely to influence whatever powerfully corrosive forces fuel such outbursts of death-dealing animus. What I can do though, is take time to think and pray, to weigh carefully and consider contemplatively, how the Body of Christ can articulate the love of God, demonstrate the peace of the Gospel hopefully, embody the ministry of reconciliation practically, and give credible expression to the sorrow of the Crucified God who bears the infinite cost of redeeming humanity from our self-destructive ways.
‘Make me a channel of your peace, where there is hatred let me bring your love……’ That I think, is the kind of New Year resolution that will take grace to keep.
Kyrie Eleison
Christe Eleison
Kyrie Eleison
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