Katrina

[joffridus]

My prayers are with the people of Louisana today. My brother's parish, about 5 hours north-west of New Orleans, has been asked to get ready for refugees to stay there. No more word yet.

Looting broke out in some New Orleans neighborhoods, prompting authorities to send more than 70 additional officers and an armed personnel carrier into the city

Comments

[bardcat]

This is an awesome read and one of the few articulations of truth I have heard in light of the tragedy which has befallen the human family.
I join you in a prayer for God's grace. I also ask for his mercy.

[joffridus]

I have such conflicted feelings. Feelings of frustration at those who had the ability to flee but didn't when warned. Feelings of horror at the loss (I know what a flood's like ...went through one in April, you know, but this is just so much larger). Feelings of helplessness to do anything. Feelings of "guilt" for not being in the midst of it. Feelings of empathy.

What does it come down to? Prayer.

My brother's parish has a parishioner who wants to help but for varied reasons, is not able to do anything. So he is fasting and praying until such time as the people of New Orleans themselves are able to have food and fresh water, too.

[bardcat]

I share your frustration and conflicted feelings and feelings of helplessness. We can, in time, act as we are led. In the meantime, and in all times, we can pray. And, this, in fact, may be the greatest good we can do. I wonder if I might ask, is it possible I could have a copy of your son's baptism service bulletin? It is a way for me, at some distance, and in some small way, to enter into this blessed covenant God is making with your son and your wife and you, and your family and friends and all those in your cirlce of love.

[joffridus]

such is our plight....

[a1an]

i dont see what is so uncilivised about people w/o food, medicine, and clothes looting for the same.

[joffridus]

I was speaking specifically of the guns, my friend. Not getting food for survival.

God's grace indeed

[piqibuhao]

Only by God's grace can we be saved as our instincts tell us to do things such as loot, kill and basically forget all the "civilized" things we pride ourselves in. Let us also not forget our Muslim brothers and sisters (when we think of humanity being one big family) who were lost in a stampede the other day in Iraq. Tragic is the loss of so many lives but more tragic is that they went into an eternity without the grace of God to save them. For the families that are left behind, both here and in Iraq, may these events not be reasons to believe there is no God but to acknowledge that there is a God and we are feeble, insignificant mortals.

eternity without grace...

[joffridus]

This may be a bit of a semantic difference, but I think it's substantial. I don't, personally, believe that anyone dies "without the grace of God to save them." Whether one has embraced that grace is another fact. But if Jesus Christ is the redeemer of the world, that sounds to me like no exclusion. The world is redeemed. Will we then bow the knee of our heart to its Lord? -- that is the question.