The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1958-12-26
JOSEPH BREIG-
Children
Closer Now

feel a desire in this Christmas season-and ! am
sure that others must feel it also-to go in spirit into
the homes of the children who were taken out of this
life by the fire in Our Lady of Angels School In Chi
cago.
This is an extremely difficult matter to write about,
not only because of my limitations, but because human
language stumbles under the burden OF the greatest
realities. But its very difficulty makes it all the more
worth the trying.
/ am not uttering a mere pious platitude, ! am
voicing deepest truth, when | say that now these
youngsters are present with their parents, and with
their brothers and sister, in an incomparably more
permanent way than ever before.
WHEN | AM ASKED how many children we have,
| answer five. | do so for two reasons. First, because
in the ordinary manner of speech, the question means
how many living children? And second, because there
is no particular point in injecting a note of bereave-
ment.
In SO replying, however, | am conscious of the
huge inadequacy of my response. The fact is, we have
seven children. The further fact is that the two whom
we would describe as having died are inexpressibly
more alive than the others. And finally, they are with
us in a more moving sense than the five whom we can
see and touch.
AS / said, this is not easy to put into words. Let
me try it this way. We do not think of Christ, or His
Mother, or st. Joseph or the other saints, as dead. We
know that they are filled with a vitality and a soaring
joy which makes us, in comparison, seem Lfeless. Our
children who died are alive with that kind OF lfe-as
school.
OFTEN IN THE MORNINGS. our grade school
children. Jimmy and Regina, climb into the car with
me to ride to their parish school, Bye" they say as
we part; and bye, kids, | call after them. And then we
are separated until evening. But never am | separated
from our Joe, who died, and our Bernadinne, who died.
They 60 down town with me; they are with me at my
desk; they return home with me.
They are our own saints, these innocent ones who
went to God with their baptismS spotless upon them.
Why God did not leave them with us, we do not know.
But we do know that if we could see through the eyes
of His boundless wisdom and goodness, we would un-
derstand, and approve. Ii may express it so, we would
take God into our arms and hug Him for having taken
our little ones to Himself.
SINCE WE CANNOT see with His knowledge and
holiness, we do not understand-or at least understand
us infinitely more than we can love them or ourselves.
Therefore we accept; therefore we approve; therefore
we give thanks even out of our pain and bewilderment.
And in prayer which reaches through the veil to our
children, we grow closer to them each day.
We say that they were taken out of this life. And
we say that the children of Our Lady of Angels School
were taken out of this life. But that is only a manner
of speaking. Entrance into Gods company is not so
much a departure from this life as its completion and
perfecting. 1t is the triumph for which we were born.
1t is the coming into our inheritance.
MYSTERY Is THE CONDITION in which we live,
and serene acceptance of mystery is deepest wisdom.
We do not know why God permitted the fire in Our
Lady of Angles school. What we do know is this
that never does He allow human nobility to go to
waste. He cherishes our heroisms, and out of them
draws colossal good for us and our fellOwmen.
For all we know. the patient pain Of the parents
of these children, united with the anguish of Christ on.
Calvary, has averted' from the world some titantic ca
tastrophe. One thing is sure-their sacrifice is forever
meaningful and forever glorious. And in the end, it will
reward them forever with unimaginable Joy, reunited
with their little ones.