Rev. Joseph P. Monahan offered this prayer after the violence at Virginia Tech several years ago. I offer it here again, this time, in wake of the senseless shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

Lord, we don’t have words for what we’ve seen. There are no words. There are only tears…

God of love, heal us.

… tears for young lives lost, for promising lives cut off, for loved ones whom we can hold no more.

God of love, heal us.

A place we cherish, a quiet place of study, a place filled with memories of friendships and laughter and learning, has been torn apart by gunshots and screams.

God of love, heal us.

We heard, but we did not believe. We tried to comprehend, but we could not. And now we ache…

God of love, heal us.

… we ache with sorrow for eyes that witnessed what no human eye should ever witness, for dinner tables with empty chairs, for lives that took years to grow but only seconds to extinguish.

God of love, heal us.

We ache with fear for our own children, for the knowledge that a decision to kill, a decision made in an instant, can never be taken back, can never be undone.

God of love, heal us.

And we ache with the emptiness that reverberates around the school, through every corner of campus, because we hear the voices of our brothers and sisters no more.

God of love, heal us.

God of love, God of blessing, God of life eternal, God of life all-powerful, God of life beyond all words, beyond all hurts, beyond all pain…

God of love, heal us. Amen.