This past week I had the privilege of participating in two ceremonies of the Sacrament of Confirmation at St. Norbert Catholic Church. It was important for me to follow through with the students I helped on this special journey.
The night before the first Confirmation class received their sacrament, I had a dream that I would stand in proxy for one of the candidates. On the day of the confirmation, I was asked to stand in proxy for a young man whose sponsor was running very late.
Saturday was the Spanish Confirmation, so I arrived extra early to help. As I was sitting in my car sipping my coffee, a student and his family were walking toward the church. The young man’s tie was hanging around his neck untied. The Holy Spirit alerted me that the candidate did not know how to tie it. Without hesitation, I went up to the family and asked if he needed help tying his tie. Both of his parents answered, “Si, por favor.” God guides us when we are needed.
The Sacrament of Confirmation
Confirmation is the outpouring of the special gifts God has in store for us. It increases the gifts of the Holy Spirit in us; wisdom, making the right decisions, knowledge, and understanding. It gives us courage when we need it and, most importantly, instills in us the fear of God. By being confirmed in the Catholic Church, we also experience an abundance of graces. Our relationship with Jesus Christ is more intimate. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are given boldness to take a greater role in the Church. You receive an indelible mark or character on the soul that can never be removed.
God First
If we can make a connection with the mass shooters who have terrorized our schools, it is that they did not have God in their lives. Jillian Peterson, PhD, and James Densley, PhD, collaborated in a study and authored the book “The Violence Project.” With years of studies of mass shootings, they have developed a database to explore the shooters, their backgrounds, guns and motivation. According to this study, there are four commonalities in mass shootings:
- Childhood trauma, violence in the home, sexual assault and parental suicides;
- Crises weeks or months leading up to the shootings;
- Most mass shooters study and copy the actions of other shooters. They want notoriety for their heinous killings; and
- The shooters all had the means to carry out their murderous plans.
The Perpetrators
In most cases the perpetrators suffered from severe bullying. We know this because they shared the information via social media. Nearly all the shooters made threatening communications before carrying out their attacks. 93% of the attacks were pre-meditated; they had it in their hearts to kill and developed a plan to carry out their hatred. The perpetrators were aware that this was their final act because they, too, would either kill themselves or be killed by the police. These broken souls were determined to bring others down because they expressed their grievances through violence.
The Fight
We are all in this together. If we do not come together as a God-fearing country, nothing will change. We need to put aside all of our prejudices and fix this once and for all. I believe in the right to bear arms, but we need to come to a consensus as to how to improve the laws so that these mentally deranged individuals will never be allowed to purchase guns. This is a different type of mental illness because these individuals are out to make a name for themselves. They believe their infamous behavior will make those who hurt them suffer, we all suffer! The family life of the Uvalde shooter is slowly trickling in: his mother was a drug abuser; he was raised by his grandparents; he was a loner. I was sickened while watching a news reporter at the home of the perpetrator’s grandparents. The perpetrator’s mother was sitting on the porch praying a rosary! Why now? And why in front of the cameras? Only God knows what went on in that house that spawned a demon.
The NRA
Shame on your organization for not canceling this convention! Shame on all those who attended and spoke there as well! How can you not have the decency to respect the loss of these babies and their teachers? What’s wrong with you people? Is it more important to sell more guns than to respect life? Your organization projected a heartless attitude to the world.
Why?
I have asked God, “Why? Why is this happening in our country?” The answer is simple: we are a killing nation. We continue to kill babies in their mothers’ wombs, not only in this country but around the world. Our murderous benevolence is coming back to haunt us. We give and give to Planned Parenthood 500 million dollars a year! Our tax payer money is spent helping illegal immigrants who are flooding our country with financial burdens. These statistics are from Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas:
- Texans pay between $579 million and $717 million each year for public hospital districts to provide uncompensated care for illegal aliens.
- Texans paid $152 million to house illegal criminal aliens for just one year.
- Texans pay between $62 million and $90 million to include illegal aliens in the state Emergency Medicaid program.
- Texans paid more than $1 million for The Family Violence Program to provide services to illegal aliens for one year.
- Texans pay between $30 million and $38 million per year on perinatal coverage for illegal aliens through the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
- Texans pay between $31 million and $63 million to educate unaccompanied alien children each year.
We pay Big Pharma to continue creating more vaccines for children! What about protecting them from violence? In an article by Jan Phillips, “Big Pharma Makes Big Bucks at Tax Payers’ Expense.” “Congress appropriated nearly 10 billion tax dollars to support development and manufacturing of COVID-19 diagnostics, treatments and vaccines.”
What we need to do is reallocate this funding and hire armed security for all public schools and hire school nurses with special training in psychology in order to defuse these mass shootings.
My Prayer
Dear Lord, all these beautiful lives were taken way too soon. As You receive them in Your loving arms, comfort the families with peace in knowing that they are with You. Lord, fill the void of these families with Your merciful love. Lord, I pray that our senators will come to the consensus to better improve our antiquated gun laws. Lord, wake parents up from their spiritual slumber and tug at their hearts to raise their children with God in their lives. Amen.