Cardinal McCarrick Urges Prayer in Wake of Tragedy

in English


Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington, celebrated a Mass held at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, DC today to pray for our nation and the victims of today’s tragedy.


The Mass was concelebrated by four other cardinals and 38 bishops from around the United States who were in town for a meeting. After Mass, Cardinal McCarrick donated blood at the Washington Hospital Center. He encourages others also to donate.

This is the text of Cardinal McCarrick’s homily at today’s Mass:

“Your Eminences, Bishop Fiorenza, my brother bishops and priests, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

I was trying to remember when I last felt this way. It was almost 40 years ago when I was Dean of Students here and John Kennedy was shot. We called everyone to a Mass in the Shrine and, like today, it was filled with students and family and people who worked here and in the neighborhood. And I remember that the most important part of it was that we were together. At a time like this it is good to be together – together with Jesus, together with Our Lady in this Church of Hers, together with all the saints and the angels and all the good people of the Church, together with all God’s people in the world. What a special grace for us to be together with so many of the bishops who guide the Church in this part of the world in our beloved United States.

In the Gospel [Luke 6:12-19] the disciples and the apostles talk about getting together with Jesus. He is together with them up on the mountain. When He comes down, He meets other disciples and is together with them and they feel His presence. And, as the Gospel tells us, power goes out of Him, not just to heal, but to strengthen, to console, to protect, to guard, to guide. Maybe we feel it especially at a time like this. That is good. The power was always going from Jesus. It is going from the word that He preaches, that He teaches us in the Gospel that we read. It is going out from the Eucharist which is the very life of Him inside our Church and inside our world. Jesus is our strength and our consolation. In the Old Testament, we cry out to God as our rock, our fortress, our deliverance, our refuge. He is still that and He always will be.

And so, in moments when we suffer the calamity and the shock and the surprise and the hurt and the fear that some friends or relatives may also have been even more seriously affected than we are, it is good that we are together. It is good that we are with Jesus, because that is where we find the strength; that is where we will find the consolation; and that is where, ultimately, in the mystery of Divine Providence all things work out. In the shock and sorrow that affects all of us at this terrible moment in the history of our nation and of our cities, it is hard to find the words to console those who have lost loved ones and to strengthen those who are so wounded in spirit by this terrible deed.

That is why today’s Gospel is a perfect Gospel for a moment of tragedy like this, since it begins by saying that Jesus went up to the mountain to pray. I think that is what we are all called to do at a time like this. We must pray for our nation, for these beloved United States of America, that God may always keep us strong and together, united in the continuing search for peace with justice throughout the world. Let us also pray for those who have lost their lives or who have been seriously injured in this calamity. But we must finally resist the temptation to strike out in vengeance and revenge and, in a special way, not to label any ethnic group or community for this action, which certainly is just the work of a few madmen. We must seek the guilty and not strike out against the innocent or we become like them who are without moral guide or direction.

The end of the Gospel tells us that the crowds came out to Jesus to ask for His healing. We must do the same thing. We pray that He will heal those who have been wounded or injured and that He will heal the hearts of those who have lost loved ones. As we pray for our nation and for our dead and for our sick and wounded, and as we reach out in deepest prayer for the families who have suffered so, let us also pray for our leaders that they may be strong and courageous in the face of this tragedy and that, as they pursue with justice the perpetrators of this horrible crime, they may never cease to continue to build this nation as it has always been built, with the values of faith and trust in the Living God. It is with this hope and with this prayer that we enter the Eucharist. It is in this hope and this prayer that we pledge our lives again to God. Amen.”


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