My Grown Up Christmas List

"And she brought forth her firstborn son; and she wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn."

As I sat this evening at Midnight Mass and listened to these words like I've listened to them each Christmas evening for the last 50+ years or for the number of years that I can recall hearing them, my thoughts drifted some 1044 miles to the east to Newtown, Ct.  I still think of these young children whose lives were so inexorably stripped from this earth.  It is, as I have aptly named this post, "My Grown Up Christmas List"that the events that took place on Dec. 14th not be so forgotten in such a callous way that the path to change will not be given up so easily.  As the words to David Foster's song continue, "no more lives torn apart", reach out to not just the Newtown community, but the world in general.  Imagine the irony of my words; asking to remember such a tragedy and on a completely paradoxical flavor, that no more lives be torn apart?  One can whittle this inside their brain and wonder what has become of his thought process?  But what I'm asking is that this tragedy NOT be so easily forgotten as previous events as this that no change ever took place.  All of us in a small way are responsible to (I include myself in this endeavor) to take this to those that can effectively see that this is stopped once and for all.  Am I dreaming, as Foster continues in his song...."why is this illusion call the innocence of you?, maybe only in our blind belief can we ever find the truth".  Can we NOT see the innocence of these young children who will never see another Christmas?  And she "wrapped him swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger".  These mothers and fathers will never have that opportunity to take their Noahs, Graces', Jacks, and Daniels, wrap them in their clothes, carry them to bed, and tuck them in ever.  It will be one of the most agonizing traumas of their lives.  "No more lives torn apart, that wars will never start, And time will heal our hearts".  Can any of this occur for these people, for this world?  I recall the words of Fr. Dale's homily this evening, "let us remember these 3 words and apply it to our world; immensity, intensity, and intimacy".  This is part of my Grown Up Christmas List for 2013.