If you go to church any length of time your priest or minister is going to deliver a particular sermon that you will find very timely as well as a gentle nudge to get you back on the right path.
My husband generally does not like to go to mass and I generally don't make a big deal about nagging him. This week was different though because he actually told me that he wanted to go to mass.
Truthfully I thought he'd tell me he changed his mind by the time Sunday rolled around but come Sunday morning he was ready to go to mass. He was hoping that he would hear something that would answer a pressing question in his mind.
Isn't it funny that the message today was a reminder to me about forgiveness.
Today's reading from the New Testament was from Matthew 13:24-30.
Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
“ ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
“ ‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’ ”
Generally this parable is interpreted to show that both believers and unbelievers will co-exist until the end of the world and the coming of Christ. My priest though brought it back home when he said that there are times when we ask ourselves, "How can God allow people who do bad things to live among us?" We were reminded that God gives us all the opportunity for forgiveness and spiritual growth and that God will be judge in the end and not those of us here on earth.
My mind went straight to Casey Anthony. It also went straight to the internal debate I have about the death penalty. If we are all children of God, if all lives are sacred, then how can we as humans support the death penalty? On the other hand are there not cases that cry out for the ultimate punishment of death and wouldn't one such case involve the murder of a child.
Like so many others I felt that I was mourning the life of a child that was cut short and for whom many of us, myself included felt found no justice in the courts.
You could see signs of this in many people that reacted to learning of the verdict in the Casey Anthony case with numbed disbelief. You could see the pain in the eyes of people outside of the court house and at the the tribute that many seemed to be suffering an empty feeling of pain as the shock of the verdict wore off. These were the tears we cried for Caylee that we'd searched for in her own mother's eyes.
Then the frustration gives way to anger which is actually one of the normal phases of grief. Some may lash out and lay blame for the death on Casey Anthony and they release of bottled up emotion that they feel.
Some people rail against fate, questioning "Why Caylee?" You may also try to bargain in vain with the powers that be why such a thing could happen to such an innocent child.
Hopefully many of us who have been affected by this case in one way or another will find some sort of ACCEPTANCE (this does not mean condoning the crime)not and HOPE that this will never happen to another child by doing something positive so there can finally be justice for Caylee.
Please sign the petition for Caylee's law. Don't let Caylee's death be in vain.
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