Though I hadn’t closely followed the story of yesterday’s hostage taking in France, I was saddened to learn again of senseless loss of life. Among those who died yesterday was a policeman named Arnuad Beltrame. It appears he offered himself to the hostage-taker in place of a young woman hostage. Apparently his offer was accepted, the young woman released and subsequently the policeman paid the ultimate price.
“Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble”, the old Spiritual tells us and surely it must. You can only imagine how that young woman and her family feel today – relief that she is alive but surely guilt that another lost his life that she might live. You could never imagine a day, from now to eternity, that this family will not give thanks to and remember the selflessness of the policeman.
It’s difficult not to draw a comparison with the week we begin on this Palm Sunday. Jesus gave his life in the name of that young woman and of all people, not to a self-made terrorist but to the evil that has plagued our existence, seemingly from the earliest days of creation. There’s such a sadness in the realisation that people don’t have to die like this – shouldn’t have to.
LENTEN THOUGHT: As we enter Holy Week, let us remember in prayer this policeman and all victims of violence. Let violence cause us to tremble and, in that trembling, let us recoil from all that is evil.
Fr. V,……………..Amen!…………………….Kitty & Roger