Victims of national tragedy remembered at Mass in St. Mary's, Boston College
(9/12/01)
Evil is a terrible and unfathomable mystery that must never be allowed to obscure
the great goodness in humanity, Rev. Michael Himes said Wednesday at a Mass
offered in St. Mary's Chapel for victims of the previous day's terrorist attacks
in New York City and Washington, DC.
"Love is bigger than hatred, forgiveness is bigger than sin [and] God ultimately is bigger than all that can oppose God," Fr. Himes, a priest of the Long Island Diocese who is a professor of theology at Boston College, said in his homily. St. Mary's Chapel in the Jesuit residence was filled to capacity at the noon Mass, at which prayers were offered for victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist hijackings and attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Prayers were also offered for victim's families, for rescue workers, and for BC alumni killed in the violence.
Following are excerpts from Fr. Himes' homily:
...Late last night I got a call from my niece and nephew on Long Island. She's
a freshman at university and he's a sophomore in high school... Like everyone,
they were horror-stricken... They were especially shaken... and they just wanted
to talk... My nephew said to me, "The thing is, Uncle Michael, I just can't
understand it. I can't get my mind around it. I can't understand how anyone
could do such a thing." I said to him, "Andrew, the point is, of course
you can't understand it - because it's irrational. Evil always is. Evil is the
thing that ought not to be. So if you can figure it out, if you think you've
understood it, you've distorted it - you've missed it. There's no way you can
say, 'Ah, you take this factor and this issue and that decision and add them
together - it equals evil.'
No, it doesn't - it never does. Evil is a great and horrible mystery. It's the
mystery of why creatures created in good and love choose not to believe in their
own goodness, and choose not to love themselves or others. There's no explanation
for that: It happens. It's real. But there's no way to say, 'And this is the
reason.' It is an ultimate and terrible mystery. So the fact that you don't
understand it, Andrew, means that you probably are wiser than all the people...
who try to explain it."
My niece said to me, "You know, Uncle Michael, the problem is, you talk about God being Love. But then we see something like this happen, and how can we believe that human beings are beings of love? I said to her, "Elizabeth, in my persuasion, the great victory of evil is when evil gets us not to believe in the possibility of goodness. The point where evil so horrifies us... we can no longer believe in the genuine goodness of human beings. A group of people... for reasons that we will never fathom - that we can never fathom - for reasons that in some horrible and distorted way seem to them true and valuable and good, blasted those planes into those buildings yesterday, destroying thousands of other human beings and themselves. But yesterday, over 65,000 people in the United States - all over this country - went to give blood. Now, I don't think you can allow a few people who do great and horrible evils to obscure 65,000 people who give their blood for other human beings...
"...You're horrified by this, and I'm horrified, and all the people around you are horrified by it. And it's the fact that we're horrified that tells you how good it is to be a human being - that we don't say: 'Ah, it made sense for them to do that, and it makes sense for us to try to destroy them, and then it will make sense for them to strike back at us, and it will make more sense for us to strike back at them.'...You know it makes no sense. You know it's horrible. And it's the sense of its horror that tells how deep the goodness in you goes. You must not let evil obscure goodness.
...A lot of people yesterday were saying,'This has awakened the anger of the
American people.' I hope not. I hope it awakens compassion, and I hope it awakens
courage. I hope it awakens strength. But there's no particular virtue in being
angry. Nobody has yet been able to declare revenge a Gospel value. Nobody has
been able to so distort justice that it ends up looking like vengeance...The
fact is, it's only when we really hurt that being able to forgive becomes important.
If you're never hurt, forgiveness is easy. It's very cheap. It's only when we're
really, really injured that forgiveness becomes really, really important.
...It seems to me, that as the people of God in this country today, there are
several things we must do. We must not try to tell ourselves, in the long run,
everything's all right and everything's secure. Nope - it's never all right:
Hasn't been all right since the sperm hit the egg. Hasn't been all right since
the momentvyou and I came into existence. It's always been dangerous: That's
the reality of things. That's the world in which God loves us, and we love one
another, and in loving one another, God..
Do not let evil obscure all of the love and goodness people display around
them day after day after day... The fact is, love is bigger than hatred; forgiveness
is bigger than sin; God is ultimately is bigger than all that can oppose God.
Finally, finally, what we bear witness to is, that God remains God, and we, God's creatures, remain deeply good, sometimes flawed, but always loved.
(This was forwarded to me by a BC alum who was at the service. If I can find
an official posting of it on the web, I'll put that one up instead.)
Return to main page. Last updated on September 19, 2001 by Mary Hess.