Some­times life brings tragedy. Pain and loss can sur­prise us, com­ing out of nowhere.  In this les­son we will look at one tragedy that hap­pened this past August.  Even though this story is sad, it is a story that can help us.  It can teach us joy and hope, even in the midst of suf­fer­ing and tears.

A trip they were loving

It was a trip the girls had really been look­ing for­ward to, and were thor­oughly enjoy­ing. It was a week of being together as friends and see­ing a dif­fer­ent part of the coun­try together. The trip was a big tra­di­tion in their high school, the Cum­bres Insti­tute in San­ti­ago, Chile. Their favorite teach­ers came with them. They were on their last day.

They were return­ing to their hotel after spend­ing the day at a national park. Since Chile has many moun­tains, the coun­try roads can be dan­ger­ous and wind­ing. This road was no exception.

Tragedy strikes

Fr. Juan Aburto, a local priest who had hap­pened to meet the girls at lunch, was dri­ving home on the same road. He came around a bend and saw a big col­umn of dust ahead of him. As he drew closer he real­ized that one of the buses car­ry­ing the girls had just gone off the road. What he found was tragic.

Appar­ently, the bus dri­ver of that par­tic­u­lar bus had tried to take a curve with too much speed. The bus had flipped over and was lying on its side on a steep hill. There had been 27 girls in the bus. Many of them had been thrown from the bus. Now some of them were strewn around the road or the hill. Some were crushed under the bus. Some were already dead. Some were dying. Some were try­ing to get up.

Fr. Juan imme­di­ately got out of the car and began min­is­ter­ing to the girls. He was in shock, yet he had to help them. He gave the sacra­ment of the anoint­ing of the sick to the girls who had died and to those who were injured. He prayed with all the girls and con­soled them. He was the first one on the scene and the last one to leave.

Faith amid tears

Yet, even Fr. Juan was impressed by what he saw in these girls. They all seemed more con­cerned about the oth­ers than about them­selves. They were in tears and in pain, but they prayed and did all they could to help each other. They even man­aged to sing, in order to keep the more seri­ously injured girls from falling into uncon­scious­ness before med­ical help arrived.

The news spreads

Nine girls died in the acci­dent. All the other 18 girls on the bus were injured, some seriously.

News of the acci­dent soon reached the fam­i­lies of the girls. The par­ents and the direc­tors of the school, includ­ing the priest who was the school chap­lain, imme­di­ately headed north to the place of the acci­dent.  Within hours they were there.

It was a tremen­dous tragedy for the fam­i­lies and the school, even for the coun­try. These were girls in the prime of life. They were girls who were deeply loved by all around them, and were look­ing for­ward to a beau­ti­ful future.

Option to trust God

Yet, what began to sur­face was faith. As the par­ents and the direc­tors of the school fought back tears, they drew closer together. They all shared a strong Catholic faith. They knew that some­how God could bring good out of this. They knew he was with them in this tremen­dously sad moment.

A human error caused this tragedy, yet instead of becom­ing bit­ter and venge­ful the par­ents announced that they for­gave the dri­ver and did not want him to be bur­dened with their anger.

Help from high places

As news of the tragedy reached the Pres­i­dent of the coun­try, she decided to offer the pres­i­den­tial plane to fly both the par­ents and the bod­ies of the girls who had died back to San­ti­ago, their home city.

At the airport

Early the next morn­ing (5:00am) the par­ents met at the air­port to receive the coffins con­tain­ing their daugh­ters’ bod­ies. The par­ents cried deeply as they received the coffins.  One mother, as she stooped to kiss the cof­fin con­tain­ing her daughter’s body, began to pray the Hail Mary out loud.  This caused all the oth­ers to join in. As they waited for the plane to be pre­pared, they cried and prayed, and even sang sev­eral of their favorite hymns from Mass in the midst of their tears.

The jour­ney home

At 7:00am the plane departed for San­ti­ago. The pilot and crew were amazed at what they wit­nessed. Instead of despair and hys­te­ria, there was tremen­dous peace.

When they arrived to San­ti­ago, the whole city seemed to be wait­ing for them. Thou­sands of peo­ple were shar­ing their sor­row. As the pro­ces­sion of cars made its way through the city, peo­ple came out on the street to wave hand­ker­chiefs and accom­pany them. There were bill­boards and posters that read: “May they rest in peace.”

Receiv­ing their friends

Back at the school, the stu­dents, rel­a­tives and friends had been hold­ing a prayer vigil since the pre­vi­ous after­noon.  Stu­dents from many other schools came to join them.

At 7:00pm there was a Mass at the school in honor of the girls. It was held out­side in the patio, since there were so many peo­ple. As the cof­fin con­tain­ing the body of each girl was brought to the patio before Mass, a teacher described each girl and invited all those present to receive her. Every­one joined in applause for each girl. Joy mixed with sor­row. The joy came from know­ing what won­der­ful girls had lived among them. The sor­row came from los­ing these good friends.

Heroic Mass

The offi­cial funeral Mass was held the next day, also at the school. More than six thou­sand peo­ple attended the Mass, includ­ing 59 priests and sev­eral bishops.

Dur­ing the Mass two girls who had been in the acci­dent read let­ters to their departed friends. They explained how sad they felt to have lost their friends, but in the midst of their sad­ness they were very happy, because they knew their friends had reached the great­est hap­pi­ness. They were with God. They had arrived at their true goal.

Then they described the party that they imag­ined God was hold­ing for each girl, a party tai­lored to the per­son­al­ity of each one of them.

Sev­eral of the girls present in the Mass were sur­vivors of the acci­dent and had lit­er­ally post­poned impor­tant oper­a­tions on their own injuries in order to accom­pany their friends in their funeral Mass.

Say­ing goodbye

Friends and fam­i­lies also accom­pa­nied the girls to the ceme­tery.  As the body of each girl was laid to rest, a small choir sang. The fam­i­lies knew they were not alone. Many oth­ers shared in their sorrow.

Some reflec­tions

As the days pass, peo­ple con­tinue to be touched by the story of these girls. We hope that this tes­ti­mony can help all of us. Our faith does not take away pain and sor­row. But it does help us to see that God can draw good even out of sad­ness and evil. It helps us see that God accom­pa­nies us in our sorrow.

God knows and feels our sor­row. Jesus, true God and true man, has given his life to free us from sor­row. But this free­dom is not yet com­plete in this life. Sor­row still accom­pa­nies us on our pil­grim­age. But it is a sor­row filled with hope. Christ has brought us hope. He has opened up heaven for us. He has brought God to accom­pany us.

Who were the Chilean girls who died?

Bernardita Bar­ros Vial

Bernardita was 16. She was from a large fam­ily: she had 12 broth­ers and sis­ters. She was a happygirl, known for being very spir­i­tual and hav­ing a great desire to learn. She greatly enjoyed being with her friends, and also directed a group of younger girls who met reg­u­larly to dis­cuss their faith and have fun together.

Along with sev­eral other friends, she had ded­i­cated her past sum­mer vaca­tion to do mis­sion­ary work: her two month mis­sion trip was to Barcelona, Spain where she shared her faith with other teens and pre­teens. Her father is a famous lawyer in Chile.

Mag­dalena Echeverria

Mag­dalena was 16. She had four broth­ers and sis­ters. She was known by all as being warm and spontaneous.

She had been very excited about this trip and had told her fam­ily many times how much she was look­ing for­ward to it. She was a top stu­dent whose favorite sub­ject was his­tory. She was plan­ning on study­ing law in col­lege. She had a strong faith and greatly liked par­tic­i­pat­ing in retreats, dis­cus­sions, and faith activ­i­ties with her friends.

Eloisa Gar­reud Sutil

Eloisa was 16. She espe­cially enjoyed help­ing a group of younger girls in their faith. She called them her “lit­tle angels” and was sin­cerely com­mit­ted to them. She often told those clos­est to her that she wanted so much to help her “lit­tle angels”get to heaven. She had spent her last school vaca­tion in Mex­ico as a youth missionary.

She was active in stu­dent gov­ern­ment and often ended up with the top aca­d­e­mic rat­ing in her class. She loved ski­ing, a favorite sport in Chile.  Accord­ing to those clos­est to her, Eloisa was seri­ously con­sid­er­ing con­se­crat­ing her whole life to God.

Elisa Con­tr­eras Searle

Elisa was 16. Elisa loved music and danc­ing. She had sev­eral rel­a­tives who are famous artists in Chile. She was also known by friends to be a gen­er­ous per­son who was good at get­ting oth­ers to rec­on­cile after a dis­agree­ment or dis­cus­sion. She helped every­one to feel united and appre­ci­ated.

Trinidad De La Car­rera Bezanilla

Trinidad was 16. She was from a large, sports-​​loving fam­ily. She was active in track and field and also com­peted in ten­nis on a national level. Those who knew “Trini” say she was a nat­ural leader, active in her faith, excep­tion­ally intel­li­gent and pas­sion­ate about every­thing she did.

Valentina Errazuriz Gandolini

Valentina was 15. She was class pres­i­dent. She loved ski­ing and track and field. She was an excel­lent stu­dent and had an A+ aver­age. Every­one who knew her said she had a deep and lively faith. Like sev­eral other girls in her class, she ran a faith group for younger girls. She greatly enjoyed being with her friends, and, like her mom, had a great enthu­si­asm for art.

Maria De Los Ange­les Costa Arteaga

Maria was 16. She She had four broth­ers and sis­ters. Accord­ing to those who knew her, Maria was always more inter­ested in oth­ers than her­self. She was an ener­getic girl who greatly enjoyed art and was active in help­ing oth­ers through ser­vice projects and faith sharing.

Bernardita Valen­zuela Prado

Bernardita was 15. Those clos­est to her describe her as fun to be around, sin­cere, and uncom­pli­cated. “Berni” was a mem­ber of the Schoen­statt move­ment, a Catholic orga­ni­za­tion that pro­motes growth in the spir­i­tual life, espe­cially through devo­tion to Mary.

Mag­dalena Rodriguez Hermosilla

Mag­dalena was 16. She was the old­est of four chil­dren. She loved her par­ents very much, and espe­cially admired her mom, who is an engi­neer. Mag­dalena was an excel­lent stu­dent, with a spe­cial tal­ent for math. She wanted to be an engi­neer like her mom.

Bible Blurbs

When Jesus saw her weep­ing, he became per­turbed and deeply trou­bled, and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Sir, come and see.” And Jesus wept. (John 11:33-35)

Jesus told her, “I am the res­ur­rec­tion and the life; who­ever believes in me, even if he dies, will live. (John 11:25)

For I am con­vinced that nei­ther death, nor life, nor angels, nor prin­ci­pal­i­ties, nor present things, nor future things, nor pow­ers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other crea­ture will be able to sep­a­rate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

Pope Quotes

Enlight­ened by faith, we look upon the human enigma of death with seren­ity and hope. Indeed, accord­ing to Scrip­ture, it is more than an end; it is a new birth. (Bene­dict XVI, November 2, 2005)

Faith, broth­ers and sis­ters, invites us to raise our heads and look beyond, to look on high! And thus, today, while we mourn the depar­ture of those who have left us, let us open our hearts to the vision of our eter­nal des­tiny. (Bene­dict XVI, April 3, 2005)

Cat­e­chism Clips

1002:  Christ will raise us up “on the last day”; but it is also true that, in a cer­tain way, we have already risen with Christ. For, by virtue of the Holy Spirit, Chris­t­ian life is already now on earth a par­tic­i­pa­tion in the death and res­ur­rec­tion of Christ.

1007: Remem­ber­ing our mor­tal­ity helps us real­ize that we have only a lim­ited time in which to bring our lives to ful­fill­ment:  “Remem­ber also your Cre­ator in the days of your youth…” (Eccle­si­astes 12:1)

1008: Death was con­trary to the plans of God and entered the world on account of man’s sin. Bod­ily death is thus “the last enemy” of man left to be conquered.

1010: Because of Christ, Chris­t­ian death has a pos­i­tive mean­ing: “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (Philip­pi­ans 1:21)

Saints & Heroes

Talk­ing to Jesus about the hard things

St. Martha (entered heaven in the first century)

Martha was the sis­ter of Lazarus and Mary of Bethany (the Lazarus whom Jesus raised from the dead – check out John Chap­ter 11 if you need to refresh your mem­ory).  She was the busy one who pre­pared the din­ner while her sis­ter sat lov­ingly at the feet of the Lord.

It’s a pity she is remem­bered almost solely for that inci­dent, since she has much more to teach us.  When Jesus came to speak with her after the death and bur­ial of Lazarus, they had a con­ver­sa­tion that shows how real, how human, how pos­i­tively nor­mal their friend­ship was.

Martha comes to him and expresses her regret that Jesus didn’t come in time to heal him.  Then Jesus ques­tions her, try­ing to stim­u­late her faith.  She answers so sim­ply, so hon­estly, so matter-​​of-​​factly, and yet her every word evinces rev­er­ence and respect.

Finally, our Lord elic­its from her one of the most beau­ti­ful acts of trust in the entire Gospel.  He tells her that he is the “res­ur­rec­tion and the life” and asks if she really believes it.  She answers, “Yes, Lord, I have learned to believe that you are the Christ, you are the Son of the liv­ing God; it is for your com­ing the world has waited.”

Then her sis­ter Mary has her own con­ver­sa­tion with Jesus (in which he breaks down and cries for empa­thy with their sor­row): equally inti­mate, famil­iar, real, human.

Even­tu­ally, they take him to the tomb, and he orders the stone seal­ing the tomb to be removed, where­upon Martha whis­pers in his ear, “Lord, the air is foul by now; he has been four days dead.”

But Jesus gets his way, and ends up bring­ing Lazarus back to life.

The point here is not just the mir­a­cle, but the rela­tion­ship that Martha had with Jesus.  It was not abstract.  It was not dis­tant.  It was not “say­ing the right thing” in order to impress him.  They knew each other, respected each other, and inter­acted as true friends (though she never failed to show him the respect he deserved).  She trusted him, could (and did) talk to him about any­thing – their con­ver­sa­tion was heart to heart.

And that’s how your prayer needs to be: a per­sonal, sin­cere, real con­ver­sa­tion with the Lord.  Therein lies your key to spir­i­tual growth.

(Source: Col­lege Compass)

Win­ning hearts for Christ through suf­fer­ing and generosity

St Mar­tin de Por­res (entered heaven Novem­ber 3, 1639)

Mar­tin was born in Peru, the son of a Span­ish knight and a black woman (a for­mer slave).  From his child­hood he was scorned for being mulatto.

Per­haps it was this expe­ri­ence that made him so sen­si­tive to the mes­sage of Christ.  He used to con­tem­plate the cru­ci­fix with extra­or­di­nary love and devo­tion, deeply sor­row­ful at the suf­fer­ing Christ had to endure, but deeply joy­ful that Christ had thereby pen­e­trated our mis­er­able lives with his grace and his love.

The only earthly thing Mar­tin loved more than the cru­ci­fix was the Blessed Sacra­ment, which he tried to receive as fre­quently as pos­si­ble, and which he often accom­pa­nied in prayer for hours on end, even entire nights. He was helped in this endeavor once he became a Domini­can lay brother, where he served as com­mu­nity nurse and gen­eral care­taker of the Fri­ary of Domini­can priests in Lima

This deep appre­ci­a­tion for the suf­fer­ings and gen­eros­ity of Christ was the motor of his own remark­able life.  He spent every wak­ing (and non-​​praying) hour car­ing for peo­ple in need, see­ing in them the needy Christ, the souls for whom Christ had died.  He cared for the sick Domini­cans with the gen­tle­ness of a mother, and extended that ser­vice through­out the city.

He founded orphan­ages and hos­pi­tals, raised money to feed the poor, tended the mal­treated slaves, and even took care of stray ani­mals (he kept a “cats’ and dogs’ home” at his sister’s house) – though his Domini­can broth­ers con­sid­ered his atten­tions towards the rats and mice a bit exaggerated.

He truly con­sid­ered oth­ers to be God’s chil­dren, and him­self to be their less wor­thy brother.  It was with this absolute humil­ity, which over­flowed in tire­less and self­less ser­vice, that he won count­less hearts to God – and that was his great­est joy.

(Source: Col­lege Compass)

Dis­cus­sion questions:

1. Have you ever been scared that sad things will hap­pen to you or to those you love? What does your faith tell you about sad­ness and tragedy? 
2. Does sad­ness have the last word in the life of a Chris­t­ian? If not, what has the last word?
3. Where do you think the girls in the acci­dent found the strength to avoid get­ting hys­ter­i­cal and to help each other when the acci­dent hap­pened? Is it easy to be strong when tragedy strikes? How does our faith help us to han­dle these moments? 
4. What virtues did these girls exer­cise in those moments? Do you think it came nat­u­rally to them? What things in their lives might have pre­pared them to han­dle this well?
5. What do you think about the par­ents of the girls who died? Do you think it was right for them to for­give the dri­ver? Do you think this was easy to do? What does it show about look­ing for true heal­ing when tragedy strikes?
6. Are Chris­tians bet­ter at heal­ing from tragedy than those who do not know the love of Jesus? Why or why not? How does know­ing Christ help Chris­tians to han­dle tragedy?
7. Do you think Jesus really rose from the dead? Do you think you will rise from the dead at the end of his­tory? Where will you be between the end of your earthly life and the end of history? 
8. Have you ever had any moments where you are really look­ing for­ward to heaven? What do you think the best thing about heaven will be? Do you know how Jesus describes heaven? Do you think heaven will be exciting?

Activities:

• Visit some­one who is sick or who has few friends dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son. Bring a small gift. Spend time talk­ing with him or her and lis­ten­ing. Find some­thing fun or enter­tain­ing to do with that per­son dur­ing your visit. Ask for some of that person’s prayer inten­tions and promise to pray for these. After­wards, send a short note thank­ing that per­son for his or her time and men­tion­ing some­thing you learned about him or her dur­ing the visit. 
• Visit a ceme­tery and pray a decade of the rosary for the souls who have died. Find the tomb of a young per­son and put a flower or some­thing sym­bolic of your prayers there. (Note: There is a ple­nary indul­gence for vis­it­ing a ceme­tery and pray­ing for those who have died!)

Jour­nal Writing

1. Write about the party God will have when some­one you really love arrives to heaven. What favorite things of that per­son will be there? What friends of that per­son should be there in a spe­cial way? What would you like to say to that per­son at that party? Think of some­thing funny that you will give that per­son at that party.
2. Think about what you would like peo­ple to say about you at your funeral. Make a list of virtues you would like to work on in order to become a per­son who shows your faith and val­ues more in life.
3. Write a list of things that remind you about the res­ur­rec­tion. These can be any happy things that have hap­pened in your life, any beau­ti­ful cir­cum­stances you have expe­ri­enced, any spe­cial moments with God or friends and fam­ily, or any­thing else you can think of. Write a let­ter to God thank­ing him for these moments and com­mit­ting your­self to show a hap­pier face to oth­ers, to have the face of some­one who believes in the res­ur­rec­tion and believes that the good things in life don’t have to end. Make a res­o­lu­tion about some­thing you will do each day to increase your faith in the res­ur­rec­tion and in heaven.

Debate (Choose one theme)

• Heaven is just a myth invented by peo­ple who can’t deal with reality.
• Chris­tians are weak when it comes to suffering.
• This world would be bet­ter if peo­ple did not believe in God.
• God does not exist, because there is so much suf­fer­ing in the world.   

Virtue Ver­i­fi­ca­tion

Accom­pany - go or be together with. As Chris­tians, we know that Christ always accom­pa­nies us: “behold, I am with you always, even until the end of time.” (28:20).

Appre­ci­ate - to rec­og­nize and be grate­ful for; be thank­ful for. Appre­ci­a­tion and thank­ful­ness are key char­ac­ter­is­tics of Chris­t­ian faith.

Com­mit­ted - bind as by a promise; pledge; to give in charge or trust

Faith – 1. Trust in God; 2. Per­sonal rela­tion­ship with God; 3. Belief in what God has revealed;  4. Faith is a super­nat­ural virtue (a super­nat­ural power). It is a power or virtue given to us in baptism.

For­give­ness - , par­don, mercy. A Chris­t­ian for­gives because he or she knows that Jesus has first for­given him or her.

Free­dom – 1) or lib­er­a­tion from the con­trol of some other per­son or some arbi­trary power 2) a being able to act, move, use, etc. with­out hin­drance or restraint.

Goal - object or end that one strives to attain; aim. Our true goal as Chris­tians is to know, love, and serve God, and to be happy with him for­ever in heaven.

Hap­pi­ness – Any con­tent­ment in pos­ses­sion of a good. The deep­est hap­pi­ness is found in pos­sess­ing God and being loved by God. God has put the desire for hap­pi­ness in the human heart in order to draw man to him­self, the source of all love. God alone can ful­fill man’s deep­est desire for happiness.

Heaven – 1. Heaven is our true home. It is where we were meant to be, after this pil­grim­age on earth. 2. Heaven is the place and state where we are totally united to God and com­pletely expe­ri­ence the good­ness and won­der of his love. It is where “he will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourn­ing, wail­ing or pain, (for) the old order has passed away.” (21:4)

Hope – 1. Trust in God; 2. Trust in God’s gift of heaven; 3. Trust in God’s mercy and for­give­ness; 4. Trust that God wants the best for us, even in dif­fi­cult circumstances.

Joy – 1. A state of hap­pi­ness or ful­fill­ment; 2. One of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. It is the result of see­ing things from God’s per­spec­tive and doing things the way Christ would do things; 3. The high­est and most com­plete joy of which we are capa­ble is the joy of see­ing and being with God.

Mis­sion­ary – A per­son who is sent (by God and the Church) with the spe­cial task of telling oth­ers about God’s love. A mis­sion­ary can go to another coun­try, but all of us are called to be mis­sion­ar­ies. We are called to be mis­sion­ar­ies to our own friends, in our own schools, neigh­bor­hoods, and families.

Peace – One of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Peace is tran­quil­ity of soul, flow­ing from aware­ness of God’s love and friendship.

Pil­grim­age – 1. A long jour­ney; 2. A jour­ney made to a holy place or a jour­ney made to draw closer to God.

Prayer – the rais­ing of one’s mind and heart to God or the request­ing of good things from God.

Rec­on­cile – 1. To bring back together; 2. To win over again to a friendly attitude.

Sin­cere - with­out deceit, pre­tense, or hypocrisy; truth­ful; straight­for­ward; honest

Sor­row - suf­fer­ing caused by loss, dis­ap­point­ment, etc.; sad­ness, grief, or regret

Unite – 1. put or bring together so as to make one; 2. To bring together in a com­mon cause