I preface this column with an important foundational truth: The Church has both the right and moral responsibility to offer commentary on current events and to help navigate the faithful through the crises we face in life. With this said, let us take up for consideration this morning the implications of the Virginia Tech massacre.

An emotionally disturbed 22 year old college student sets out on a rampage killing 32 students and professors at Virginia Tech, numerically the worst of such killings on a college campus in US history. As a result, life in America comes to a halt. The massacre was of such a magnitude that the President of the US ascended the pulpit as Keynote speaker at a Memorial Convocation, the Governor of Virginia returned from an official trip to Asia, and the nation of South Korea, the killer’s country of origin, issued a powerful statement of shock and condolence. Closer to home our flags flew at half-staff.

Indeed this was an event of horrific proportion. In our lifetime, however, it is but one in a series of horrific events, not the first, not the last. The truly important question for us to contemplate today is this: What is to be learned from such horror?

First, that sin does not happen in isolation, and neither does grief. Like a stone thrown in a calm pond, the ripples of this shooting rampage impacted not just students and faculty of a particular university, but their families, friends, our nation and the world. Indeed, the words of St. Paul ring true in this moment of grief that, “When one member of the Body suffers the entire Body suffers.”

Second, in paradox to the first point, we see in this instance an affirmation that SIN is born out of alienation. Most notably, the killer in question is described with such adjectives as loner, antisocial and isolationist. Here the question must be asked: Where was God? Where was family? Where was community in this disturbed student’s life? The acid test for determining the genus of all sin is the absence of all of the above. In a word, ALIENATION!

Pastorally, the Church illustrates, not through words, but through action, at the marriage sacrament, how we can effectively avoid alienation, and thus the danger caused by sin. Notice, the first steps taken by the bride and groom to the Kingdom of God are not taken alone, they are holding one another’s hands, they are led by Christ Himself in the person of the priest, and they are supported by the Church in the person of the official witness of the Church, the Koumbaro. The message is this, if they always hold onto one another, allow themselves to be led by Christ and supported by the Church, if they stay on the road, they will reach their destination and have a meaningful and fulfilling journey on the way. Only when they reject one another, Christ and the Church, only when they seek to go their own way do they set off on the path to destruction. I dare say, this image is applicable to success in all relationships, a sure way to avoid alienation and sin!