Religion & Law

My friend Mary O'Callaghan has an incredibly powerful piece, up at The Catholic Thing, called "Down Syndrome:  On Holy Ground."  It is amazing -- though, to those of us who know her, not surprising -- that she is able to describe a monstrously hateful incident and yet to use that description as an occasion for (what would have been entirely justified) fury, but for profound reflection:

[A]fter seeing the online ridicule of Down Syndrome children, I wonder whether the deepest sorrow that pierced Mary?s heart was not the physical suffering of her son, but the cruel taunts and mockery to which he was subjected. It must have been bewildering to her that his tormentors could not see that all the life and goodness, truth and beauty in her Son. Of course our children are not messiahs. But a Holy Cross Priest at Notre Dame reminded us last week that those of us who care for individuals with cognitive handicaps stand on holy ground. Knowing a child with Down Syndrome is like getting a small glimpse of the divine; original sin has been cleansed by baptism, and their souls are barely touched by actual sin. And that?s why we feel that when they are shown disrespect, something innocent and holy and sacred has been profaned.

Our Lady of Sorrows, may all of us see in the faces of those with disabilities, particularly this March 21 those with Down Syndrome, the image of the God who saved us.