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Homily Message Hits Home

...thankyou note to Fr. Wertin.

Editors Note: Much has already and will be written about the events of September 11th, 2001. Sometimes the writing is as much for the writer's soul as for the reader. If any parishioners would like to submit their thoughts to the webmaster for publication, they will be seen on these pages. Submit to rhollj@bitstream.net.

Thank you, Father Wertin, for your homily on Sunday.

I've not been a regular churchgoer, so it was oddly coincidental that I was at the Peace Mass back in August. Your words then made me question decisions and a lifestyle which I have always accepted. At home, I spoke about it with my husband, like me a child of the 60s, and while he listened, I think he nodded and put it in the category of "church" which to him means partial validity.

I was in the air last Tuesday on my way to Washington National, about 100 miles behind the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania. We were turned about abruptly and sent to Detroit, and were able to get a rental car to drive home. New Jersey is my home-state, and New York is very much my frame of reference for much in my life. That trip home, four of us silent while we listened to Public Radio, was the fastest and the slowest twelve hours of my life. I wanted to be home with my family so badly. But, as I drove, I began to think of the issue of reprisal, and I tried hard to put it in context of peace. Along with grief, this was my chief struggle. Yes, I'm the daughter of two WWII Marines, but I have had my life illuminated by love, and peace makes more sense to me.

The whole family came on Sunday -- husband, son and daughter. We drove in from Minnetonka, arguing the whole way about what peace could possibly mean in this grim new context. I felt that there had to be some way to resolve this inside, and I felt that you would help. So, yes, you did. For us all. My husband said to me last night in the kitchen, "I've been thinking more about what was said on Sunday, and I think he's right". My daughter, who in 8th grade is just too cool to be seen doing anything NOT cool, asked to be driven to school early this morning to pray around the flagpole with some of her classmates -- an event which has been pretty violently fundamentalist in the past.

I do think it will be much harder to continue to assert and act on these values than it would be to follow the "dead or alive" model. It's much easier to NOT think about it, and to just go along with the crowd. (My husband had a severe argument with a neighbor last night when he spoke of temperance, and the man responded with snarls about being behind his president). But, I also had a sense last Sunday of what the whole point of community and church really means. There was a moment when I sensed God's presence and power in each and all of us together. And, after all, that's the point, isn't it?

From the bottom of my heart, and from my whole family, thank you.
Mary Ross