Almost three weeks before Charlie Kirk’s murder on a college campus in Utah, I wrote an article about how much young people need forgiveness. I shared how college students are trapped in cycles of resentment and power grabs that make them believe (falsely) that they should never have to forgive. Charlie and Erika Kirk observed the same things in their time on many college campuses. What they didn’t know is that they would both become powerful conduits of God’s grace and mercy to those very same students through Charlie’s murder.
Some of my college students reported to me hearing cheers in the dorms when it was announced that Charlie Kirk had died from an assassin’s bullet to the neck. It is startling to realize there are people living next door who wish you dead because of your religious or political beliefs. Even though human history is filled with violence over both religion and politics, political violence had slowed down in this country for multiple decades. It’s only been in the last 1.5 years that we have returned to an era similar to the 1960s.
The understandable response to the evil of rejoicing in the murder of another is anger, shock, and dismay. But anger, even righteous anger, will only get us so far in the face of such darkness. Only the illuminating light of Christ can rescue souls trapped in hatred and violence. Responding with verbal violence only increases the blindness of souls trapped in lies, lies which have led them to mutate their bodies, to seek only what is pleasurable, and to desire power above all else.
I’ve worked with enough young people to know that despite the immense anger, hatred, and resentment they spew at Christians who oppose their hedonism and nihilism, many of these young people are the wreckage of the Sexual Revolution and a Church that didn’t lead them. Far too many come from abusive homes, absent parenting, and a narcissistic culture. They grew up in a worldly, banal Church that introduced them to a caricature of Christ, rather than to Christ Crucified and Risen from the dead. We must move past the vitriol to see the wounds underneath, despite the verbal blows we will be asked to endure in the process.
The Lord sees the heart. He knows how to reach the most hardened of sinners. He turned Saul into St. Paul. A man with murder on his hands and hatred in his heart was struck down by the radiant light of Christ in order to rise as one of His greatest missionaries. Both Charlie and Erika Kirk seem to understand that these young people are in desperate need of light in the darkness. They need Christ to save them. They need mercy—not counter-violence.
One can rightly argue that the political angle in all of this is a complicated one. The Republican Party is not Catholic. Some of its platform is antithetical to Catholic moral teaching. The Overton Window on abortion and IVF were moved by the Party to win. One can prudentially argue against many of the policies currently in place and be a good Catholic. The political aspect of all of this is much muddier than we want to admit. What we do know is that, in the face of murder, Erika Kirk did more for the Christian cause in this nation than most of our leaders of the last 50 years. She didn’t dish out bland, beige Christianity to the world; she embraced the fullness of Christ’s call.
The Cross is power. The Cross is Life and Light. Before hundreds of thousands of people, Erika Kirk made the decision to fully embrace the Cross. She allowed herself to be crucified with Christ when she uttered her words of forgiveness for her husband’s murderer. We must keep praying for her because forgiveness is a decision we make over and over again with the graces given by God, especially since she still has her husband’s murderer’s trial ahead of her.
Forgiveness is divine. It is not something we will on our own, especially when confronted with the horrors of watching your beloved husband murdered before your eyes and then seeing his lifeless body on a cold morgue table. In many ways, only Our Lady of Sorrows at the foot of the Cross can relate to and comfort her in the face of such utter agony. Only She can lead us into the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced in love on the Cross.
The forgiveness Erika Kirk extended is a tremendous grace from God that is meant to shed light into the black night of our culture. The power of the Cross was unleashed upon a nation torn by bitterness and violence. There was no burning, looting, and counter-violence. Instead, there was the Divine Love of Christ Crucified poured out from the Cross through the courageous forgiveness of a grieving widow.
Violence is weakness and cowardice. Forgiveness is strength and power. Young people across college campuses need the witness of light and Truth to penetrate their darkened intellects and hearts. There are countless college students trapped in loneliness, isolation, and pain. Mental illness among young people is skyrocketing because they are glued to a virtual unreality in their hands.
My students taught me a new term: bedrot. It’s when young people sit in their dorm rooms for hours or even days on end, scrolling on their devices. Sometimes they won’t even leave for food. The Church fully embraced all this technology with no prudent discernment, and we are now seeing the fruits of it. We have lost our prophetic vision. How could we not see that a tech with the apple from the Fall has a demonic dimension to it? The rampant technology addictions and social isolation of our society are fruits of this technology. Charlie Kirk’s murder is partly the result of the dark places of the Internet.
We have turned community into virtual relationships that are empty, loveless, and lack any real sacrifice. Charlie Kirk had the courage to physically enter the fray on campuses in order to reach the lost. All the social media threads about the Kirk Family will do very little good if we do not shut our devices off and start walking into broken people’s lives. If we do not seek to forgive and ask forgiveness of those we have hurt in our lives, then Erika Kirk’s witness will fall on deaf ears. Her witness is a summons to us all to offer forgiveness in our own lives.
There are countless suffering people in our pews and in our communities who quietly bear their burdens in isolation and loneliness. I know because I see it in ministry and I hear it from people every time I give a talk. It is a lie of our age that things are going well for people. Everyone is carrying something. Young people stumble into our churches and are often ignored or scoffed at because they don’t have it all together. We are supposed to be the place where the broken find rest and healing. We are supposed to be the ones going out to the suffering and afflicted rather than hiding within our churches, checking Sunday Mass off. Only a radical commitment to our Catholic Faith will help save souls.
The Lord is still Healer, Deliverer, and Savior. He wants to save souls. He is using people like Erika and Charlie Kirk to reveal the darkness within the culture and within our own hearts. Their boldness should both shame us and awaken in us the desire to more fully follow Christ. The Church has done a poor job of leading souls to Christ in recent decades. Now is the time to begin to fully embrace the Cross. Erika Kirk’s powerful witness to forgiveness should encourage all of us to see where we are lukewarm and to ask Christ set us aflame with His love so we can go out to save souls trapped in darkness. We must beg Him for graces to forgive those who have hurt us and to seek forgiveness when we have hurt others. We can’t waste the supernatural power of this moment.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons
