Tragic death

17th century saint, st. Vincent, he had one rule. Whenever something extraordinary happened that surprised the everyday course of life, he asked himself: What did God mean? For he knew, and we know, that nothing happens by chance. The tragic death, which became the gateway to eternal life for our deceased Ivan, surely wants to speak to all of us who are here and also called to life in the kingdom of God. Dear grieving family, brothers and sisters! As we have heard in today’s Gospel, for his contemporaries, but also for us, he explains what they wanted to say to the tragic facts that happened: their victims. He said to them, “Think these Galileans were more sinners than the other Galileans when they suffered so? No, I tell you, but if you don’t repent, you will all perish likewise. Or think that eighteen that fell in Siloed, and killed them, were they more guilty than the rest of the people of Jerusalem?

The events that Jesus is talking about are tragic. But we could see that he was not devoted to explaining the causes and consequences of the tragically perished. So he wants to turn his attention away from the death of those who have died. This also applies to us. For the deceased Ivan, he may have matured, and I am sure he was ripe for eternal life in the kingdom of God. In his life he understood where he was heading and was ready to go into eternal life. Note that Jesus speaks alive in remembering the tragic events because there is no reason to think that the dead were greater sinners than others. It is a reason for conversion and repentance for us. God’s actions, which we often do not understand, do not serve to ask God constantly: Why?

But here is the challenge of Jesus to repent so that we are ready to enter the kingdom of God. We know that we all die once. The question of repentance and importance thus gains weight and importance for each one of us who still has the opportunity to do something. None of us is holy, but God is calling us to repentance through which we can change, become good and achieve salvation. Therefore, the gospel, the good news, begins with the challenge: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt 3: 2). Jesus thinks of the conversion of the hearts, of the inner repentance, from which the works and acts of repentance are to come. It is to turn wholeheartedly to God, to give up sinful life, to reconcile with neighbors, to be faithful to marital love. It is the desire and decision to change life with the hope of God’s mercy. It is an effort to live in love. The surest way of repentance in love: take your cross every day and follow Jesus. And be assured that God will give the strength to start again.

Jesus cares about each one of us. He came to the ground for us, was tortured and rose from the dead to open all of us a gate to the eternal kingdom. That is why he calls us to repentance today. I hope that our brother, who understood this in his life, is already in heaven and is waiting for us. Perhaps through his so sudden departure, God wants to tell us that we too should be prepared and mature when God calls us once, and we also do not know when it will be and in what way. God does not want to lose anyone. Repentance is the way to him, in the direction of his merciful love. Is it not repentance that transforms our lives according to God’s will? The will is life in love for God and neighbor. Is this not a journey of self-maturity? I know, brothers and sisters, that it is hard to think about this now that we are in such a sad situation. But it can be an opportunity for us to take our first steps on the path of repentance, that is, to turn life into a life of love according to God’s will. A similar situation has become an opportunity to grow and progress in the love of an American family.

Max Ellbrush, a qualified worker, speaks from his own life. “It happened on Friday, there was a lot of rush because in six days it was Christmas. It was 1958. I worked as an electrician and tried to plan to spend Christmas in peace, in the circle of my family. Suddenly, the phone rang and a voice on the other hand told me that my 6-year-old son had been hit by a car. There were many people around him. When I came to him, he was lying in the middle of the road, his blond curly hair torn. On the same day, Kieth died in the hospital … The car that hit him did not blow and disappeared once. My wife and I went out of the hospital on a street decorated with Christmas lights. We could not understand what had actually happened. It lasted until evening. As I walked past the empty bed, it was only then that I realized what had happened. Then I cried not only for loneliness, but also for the nonsense of life at all. Of our four children, Kieth has helped us most often in our life problems. When we came to someone to visit, he said, “What a beautiful apartment you have.” When somebody gave him something, he was touched to tears, but he gave the gift to the first Deck that envied him. When such a child was supposed to die, when such a life could go out in a moment, then nothing was meaningful, and faith in God was self-deceptionIn the morning, my hopelessness and helplessness turned into blind hatred of the man who caused us the misfortune. Meanwhile, the police found the man. It was 15 years old Georg Williams. The police knew he came from a bad family. His mother worked at night and slept during the day. On fateful Friday he was not at school and while mom was asleep, he stole the car keys and raced at full speed. All my anger seemed to focus on the name Georg Wilson. I called our lawyer and asked him to treat the case as an adult case. In cases of minors, the trial is not hard enough. That was my mental state. Late from Saturday to Sunday, I walked around the room, my hands squeezing hard. It was at that moment that my life changed. At that time, I realized that life has meaning, it has one simple goal. It is similar to the school year. In this school year, in this class of life, we are bound to learn only one thing: love. I cried out loud: Oh, Kieth, little Kieth, you learned a lot in six years! How fast you made progress. How fast you got to the next year. Gracie, my wife, was sitting on my bed as I opened the bedroom door. She did nothing but looked ahead of herself from that unfortunate Friday. I took her hand and tried to explain to her that suffering on this earth was not the end, but led to happiness, far beyond our expectations. I told her: Tonight, Kieth no longer needs us. But someone else needs us. It’s Georg Williams. It’s Christmas. There will be no Christmas present in prison for him unless we send him. Gracie listened contentedly, looked at me apathetically and said to me: You’re right. This is the first right solution after the death of Kieth. It was really right. It turned out that Georg was a wise and independent boy, but without a future. He needed a father and I a son. He got his Christmas present, and his mom got a box of desserts that Grace had baked. We asked for his release from custody. When he went out, our house became his second home. After teaching, he helps me in an electrician’s workshop. He has become a good older brother to my other three children. ” This family understood that tragic death also made sense and became an opportunity for them to forgive, love, and mature in the way to God.

Dear brothers and sisters, understanding the language of emergencies in our lives is often difficult. But each of them brings us a deep truth, and often because it is extraordinary, it wants to highlight and underline the content it hides within itself. Let us accept Jesus’ explanation and the challenge that He addressed to all of us. Do penance to handle the task in this class of life. Through repentance, they thus mature in love, which is the readiness to move to the next year.