All Those Tiny Lives in Newtown

“This is our first task — caring for our children. It’s our first job. If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right. That’s how, as a society, we will be judged…. And by that measure, can we truly say, as a nation, that we are meeting our obligations? Can we honestly say that we’re doing enough to keep our children — all of them — safe from harm? Can we claim, as a nation, that we’re all together there, letting them know that they are loved, and teaching them to love in return? Can we say that we’re truly doing enough to give all the children of this country the chance they deserve to live out their lives in happiness and with purpose?..... “We can’t accept events like this as routine. Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?”
—President Barack Obama, December 16, 2012

“It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”
—Mother Teresa

“All Those Tiny Lives in Newtown”
(Lord, They Didn’t Have a Prayer”)

All those tiny lives in Newtown,
Father God, how could this be…?
Holy Spirit, help us fathom
This perverse atrocity!

Give us wisdom to discern, Lord…
Why this Evil?…Why this pain?
What’s this war that we’re detecting?
What’s this battlefield campaign?

Is the issue really weapons?
Are the guns here, Lord, to blame?
Is it bullets?...Maybe triggers?
(Something tells me that’s insane!)

Can Big Brother really fix us?
With another round of Law?
Or, perhaps, there’s something deeper
In the soul… A deadly flaw (?)

Could it be we’re missing something?
Have we fallen for the “spin”?
Tell the truth, Lord….We can take it!
Could the problem here be Sin!?

Lord, have mercy!... All these idols,
All these gods that we have prized!
O, Sweet Lord, where is our conscience?
Simply seared and cauterized.

All those little lives in Newtown!
God, they never had a prayer!
Only your Law now can help us,
Surely, Lord, we must still care!

All those little ones in Newtown
Multiplied now every day…
We don’t see it…We don’t feel it.
We’ve forgotten how to pray.

Father, give us Grace to hear You…
May we do so through your Son.
Take us to the Cross of Calv’ry…
Lord, we’re blind to what we’ve done.

Rembrandt, "Three Crosses"

“Jesus said, Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” ( Luke 23:34)

“If abortion isn’t wrong, nothing is wrong.”
—Mother Teresa

“We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change….. Because what choice do we have?”
—Barack Obama, December 16, 2012, Newtown, Connecticut