The burden of helplessness is so very heavy. I feel it in my bones as I drag them around all week trying to accomplish even the basic tasks required by life. Everything demands extra effort and I am tired. Collapsing on the sofa after work, I find myself asleep hours before my normal bed time. Yet in the morning I awake feeling the same as the day before. Rest doesn’t seem to ease the load.

They are so far away from me, the ones who suffer; about 1500 miles according to the map. But at the same time they are so near. I hold them deep within my heart, which breaks and grieves for what has been done to them out of hatred, out of misunderstanding, out of fear, out of ignorance, out of dehumanization.

Jolts of anger rise up and crash through the sadness, shake me out of my stupor and focus my attention on all that is awful and wrong in this country. “Somebody needs to be blamed for the state of our nation in which this tragedy keeps repeating itself over and over!” my brain shouts loudly, pointing proverbial fingers at the characters I most love to abhor in my country.

Though my self-righteous fuming makes me feel better about myself for a moment, it is just temporary and it too fails to ease the load. The helplessness returns with a vengeance, threatening to paralyze my ability to function in any sort of productive way.

Feebly I attempt to avoid the news coverage as it only seems to exacerbate the exhaustion in my soul, yet I am drawn to it like a moth to a flame. It fuels more sadness and grief and anger. It chews me up and spits me back out, beaten and bruised. But I don’t stop myself.

Longing for healing and nourishment and peace I drag myself out to the car and drive to Saturday night Mass. Surrounded by hundreds, I feel utterly alone. The music, the spoken words, they fade to the background as I stare at the crucifix hanging in the front. My gaze falls upon the crucified One.

Little by little I recollect that just as my brothers and sisters who were murdered this past week in El Paso, He too was murdered out of misunderstanding, out of fear, out of ignorance, out of dehumanization. The same hatred that killed them is the same hatred that killed Jesus.

And as He hung there dying, all the while being taunted and mocked, He uttered these profound, game-changing words, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” While being nailed to the cross by the most perverted and wicked measures of hatred, He responds with the purest expression of love.

The anger and hatred I try to disguise as a thirst for justice—what if it is no better than the hatred which has been used to perpetrate evil? And it occurs to me that those same words, perhaps He utters them about me also…“Father, forgive her, for she knows not what she does.” Truly I don’t know how many times I’ve allowed my misunderstanding, my ignorance, my fear to reap pain and suffering on others. And I really don’t want to know because if I own that truth, I am reminded that there is no them, there is only us.

At the core of us I recognize a collective woundedness, a collective brokenness, our collective tendency to depravity. I am not immune to it. It lies deep within me also, just as it does in a young man who went to a Walmart near the border so that he could kill those whom he most feared in his own thirst for justice. There is no them, there is only us.

As the priest raises the wide rimmed chalice of wine up to the heavens during the prayer of consecration, I imagine us all in the cup together; the murdered, those they left behind, the murderer, his parents, those freshly paralyzed with fear because of the color of their skin, the white supremacists, the first responders, the racists, the surgeons, the politicians, the lovers, the haters, everyone in between and me. I offer us all to God’s mercy and to His power to open our hearts and minds and to His ability to transform our darkness into light, our hatred into love.

The words Father sings with the cup raised high crash into my stream of consciousness. “Through Him, with Him, in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father, for ever and ever.”

With clarity, I see my self-perceived helplessness as a bold lie. Each and every day I have a helpful choice to make—will I allow my woundedness and brokenness to incur more bleeding and pain in this world, or will I beg of the One greater than I that through Him, with Him and in Him, it may be transformed into an expression of redemptive love, as He chose, even while bleeding and dying on the cross?

My longing for healing and nourishment and peace propels me forward in the line to receive communion and I consume the gift of the bread and wine, which my faith tells me has been transformed into His body and blood. It dawns on me that all whom I blame for that which is horrible, they too are children of God. All those I most love to abhor for the way in which they treat those with brown or black skin—they are loved the same by Him as I am. The murderer? Also loved by God. This week I’ve been dragging around the heavy burden of hatred and unforgiveness, all the while trying to justify it in the name of righteousness. But in God’s Kingdom, I don’t think there is room for these. It’s best they be left outside the door before entering. The Christ—truly, He is the antonym of me.

Moved to a place of surrender, I drop my sack overflowing with hate and self-righteousness and judgment and humbly utter the words, Father, forgive US ALL for we know not what we do.