Terrorism has come
to our city. Not to our country: we’ve had the Bali bombings, the Sydney café siege,
and yesterday we confronted its presence here. It’s not so unusual. East, West,
North and South people have left home in the morning expecting to return at
night, not prepared for suddenly ending their days, accounting for their time
on earth. Eulogies will follow. Never so much are the living praised as the
dead. Yet they were just as praiseworthy then.
Attackers of
random strangers also often die, even in their deeds. Their account may be
somewhat different, depending on who makes it. But terrorism, for all the fear
it is meant to inspire, isn’t the only way to unexpectedly depart. Jealousy
costs many lives, family conflict more; accidents arrive at work, on roads, in
the air. The Litany prays against ‘dying suddenly and unprepared’ as if there
were some way to become prepared.
The elder Church
insisted on frequent confession. Absolution puts the mind at rest. But change,
in this house of fire, is constant, from purification and readiness to unstable
human truth. How do you want to be remembered? How loving, how loved? How shall
we live in farewell?
