Tears in Aurora

Today we keep the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, and it’s fitting that we do. She is a figure of great extremes: completely overcome with joy to hear the words of grace spoken to her; or throwing herself at the feet of Jesus before he went to die, anointing him with her tears; or sitting in rapt attention listening to Jesus’ every word; or in the garden on Easter Sunday morning, so inconsolable in her grief that she does not recognize the risen Jesus, thinking him the gardener. In art she’s often depicted as unkempt, her long hair in tangles, arms outstretched, robes aflutter, absorbed utterly in the emotional demands of the moment.

Many of us today are still reeling from the news of the shooting in Aurora late Thursday night, at a midnight showing of the new Batman film. I have spoken with some of you between then and now, and with many friends and colleagues around the church. Everywhere people are in shock. They are horrified. They are angry. They are deeply saddened. I for one have tried time and again to imagine myself in that theater. And yet I simply cannot. In my imagination, I cannot get past the entrance of a masked man through an emergency exit, staring quietly at a packed house. That’s it. My imagination stops there. Ceases to work.