In the wake of yesterdayâs senseless attack in Manchester, UK any right minded person asks why?
Why is there such madness, hatred and meaningless violence? What can be accomplished by murdering innocent children in a cruel and cowardly attack? What can be achieved except more terror and yet more terror?
There is little that can be said except that it reveals the heart of darkness at the heart of humanity. Chesterton said the one Christian doctrine which surely no one could deny was the doctrine of original sin.
From Edenâs fall man and women were at enmity and brother rose up to slay his own brother.
And when asked why God allows this all that we can say with a trembling whisper is âHe understands. He went there and took it on himself.â
Edith Sitwellâa troubled soul and eventually a Catholic convert wrote much poetry that was ephemeral and forgettable, but her poem Still Falls the Rainâwritten during the heart of the WW2 bombing of London resonates today.
Still falls the Rainâ
Dark as the world of man, black as our lossâ
Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails
Upon the Cross.Still falls the Rain
With a sound like the pulse of the heart that is changed to the hammer-beat
In the Potterâs Field, and the sound of the impious feetOn the Tomb:
Still falls the RainIn the Field of Blood where the small hopes breed and the human brain
Nurtures its greed, that worm with the brow of Cain.Still falls the Rain
At the feet of the Starved Man hung upon the Cross.
Christ that each day, each night, nails there, have mercy on usâ
On Dives and on Lazarus:
Under the Rain the sore and the gold are as one.Still falls the Rainâ
Still falls the Blood from the Starved Manâs wounded Side:
He bears in His Heart all wounds,âthose of the light that died,
The last faint spark
In the self-murdered heart, the wounds of the sad uncomprehending dark,
The wounds of the baited bearâ
The blind and weeping bear whom the keepers beat
On his helpless flesh⌠the tears of the hunted hare.Still falls the Rainâ
Thenâ O Ile leape up to my God: who pulles me douneâ
See, see where Christâs blood streames in the firmament:
It flows from the Brow we nailed upon the treeDeep to the dying, to the thirsting heart
That holds the fires of the world,âdark-smirched with pain
As Caesarâs laurel crown.Then sounds the voice of One who like the heart of man
Was once a child who among beasts has lainâ
âStill do I love, still shed my innocent light, my Blood, for thee.â
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