Celebrating Death????

I was saddened at the site of Americans celebrating in the streets, following the death of Osama Bin Laden. Although personally proud our troops where able to find him, and take him out, I don't see much difference between Americans celebrating a death, by waiving flags, and blowing car horns in the streets, and the similar public displays we witnessed, in parts of the Islamic world, following the destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11. The killing of a human being is never something to celebrate, for it simply demonstrates how far we all are, from what God intended us to be, created, as we are, in His image and likeness. People like Osama Bin Laden, and Adolf Hitler, however evil, should be pitied. Furthermore, Our Lord Jesus Christ commanded us to love our enemies. Rejoicing over the death of someone, even someone as evil as Bin Laden, is not consistent with our Christian Faith, and the teachings of Christ, the Prince of Peace.



"Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn



The events taking place in our world should be a call for all of us to take a closer look at ourselves, and seek transformation of our own hearts, with the help of God's Holy Spirit. Saint Seraphim of Sarov tells us that, if we acquire a peaceful heart, a thousand around us will be saved. Let us not rejoice when someone as evil as Bin Laden is taken down, but ask God to remove the same evil from our own hearts, and grieve over the fact that one more person, a brother, has fallen under the influence of the devil.



Abbot TryphonSee more

by: All-Merciful Saviour Orthodox Christian Monastery