"It shall be a time unsurpassed in distress." This week, we saw beheadings in Afghanistan, bombings in Lebanon, and shootings in France. It is easy to feel like we are living in the end times, to hope that our Parent will swoop in and make everything better. But that is not the hope we are called to live. No, our task is to love our neighbor, even if they be the outcast or the enemy, and to let happen whatever is going to happen. We are called to trust in the love of the cross. And to proclaim the truth that while heaven and earth might pass away, grace never will. Alleluia, alleluia.