We are a brutal species. Our record of murder and warfare stretches back thousands upon thousands of years. We can cry out "never again" all we want. We can march and protest day after day. We can strategize and legalize and proclaim all sorts of noble things. But we will still kill one another, over and over and over again. As long as we are human, we will kill one another. It is what we do.
And today, of all days, we are called to confront this truth. For the cross is not a moral aberration. No, it is who we are: abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, gangs, genocide, honor killings, terrorism, vigilantism, et cetera, et cetera. Is there any doubt that ours is a culture of death? Even if we never pull a trigger or plunge a dagger ourselves, we all enable it and we are all drowning in it.
Yes, hope lies just beyond the horizon. But we are not there yet, not today. Today, we are called to lie in the tomb; to sit with who we are and what we do; to recognize that hope is not the product of smart people or smart ideas; to see that while the culture of death might be our reality, we do not have to live there. Yes, hope is within reach, if we are brave enough to wait in the tomb for her arrival.