A prayer for Little Adam

Why does ittake a three year old child to show everyone the proper response to Islamic andethnic hatreds?  In the end after twohours, their blood lust still unsated, one of them simply killed the boy.

Why do wenot hear from the Muslim over this atrocity? Why are they always silent?

Germany’s collective shame is that those who knew did not speakor at least made quite clear that what they were witnessing was wrong.

I somehowfeel that the Islamic mind and soul knows no shame at these events that arebeen perpetrated again and again.  Is a soulwithout shame a soul?

I suggestthat all Christians pray to the soul of little Adam for assistance in never forgettinghis courage and sacrifice.  Perhaps thislittle child will some day be worthy of sainthood as a reminder of the real mortalsacrifices made by the faithful over the centuries.

Have a goodand happy Christmas.

“Enough, Enough, Enough”: 3-Year-Old Catholic ConfrontsIslamic Terrorists as His Parents Lay Dead

2010 DECEMBER 15

BY LISA GRAAS

http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/12/15/enough-enough-enough-3-year-old-catholic-confronts-islamic-terrorists-as-his-parents-lay-dead/

One month has passed since the massacre ofCatholic Christians by Islamists in Our Lady of Deliverance Churchin Baghdad. AsChristians throughout the world celebrate Advent, which represents the awaitingof the birth of the Christ Child, word is spreading of Adam, a little Catholicboy who, at the tender age of three years old, stood up courageously to the Muslim aggressors in the midst ofcarnage.

Frances Cardinal George, the outgoingpresident of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, included Adam’sstory in his final remarks to the USCCB in November:

Now, at the end of last month, on the vigil of the feast of AllSaints, in the Syriac Catholic Cathedral of our Lady of Deliverance in the cityof Baghdad, many dozens of Catholics were killed as they gathered for Mass. Twowere priests: one was killed at the altar and the other as he left theconfessional. They are joined in death with hundreds of others who have diedfor their faith in Christ since the current conflict began. An AmericanDominican Sister, a friend of a friend, has written from that country: “Wavesof grief have enveloped their world, surging along the fault lines created inIraqi society by the displacement of thousands of Iraq’s Christian minoritywho have fled what is clearly a growing genocidal threat…One survivor was askedby a reporter, what do you say to the terrorists? Through his tears hesaid, ‘We forgive you.’…Among the victims of this senseless tragedy was alittle boy named Adam. Three-year-old Adam witnessed the horror of dozens ofdeaths, including that of his own parents. He wandered among the corpses andthe blood, following the terrorists around and admonishing them, ‘enough,enough, enough.’ According to witnesses, this continued for two hoursuntil Adam was himself murdered.” As bishops, as Americans, we cannot turn fromthis scene or allow the world to overlook it.

At three years old, children are beginning tolearn from their parents about crossing the street safely and about being carefularound strangers. It is at this age that children begin to ask “why” questions.

Little Adam surely knew, as is demonstrated byhis actions, that there is no reasonable answer to the question “why” as hisparents and others lay dead. It was clear to Adam that a horrible injustice hadbeen done. Adam’s ability to reason was developed enough to recognize blatantinjustice. His courage prompted him to act upon what reason had informed hisconscience of.

This is critically important to recognize in the debate about Islam vs. Christianity.

Whether Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist,Catholic or anywhere in between, Christianity universally teaches hermembers to be ‘as little children.’ It can be said, then, that Adam trulyrepresents Christian fundamentalism. Adam is a perfect model of the trueChristian. Islamic fundamentalism, on the other hand, isrepresented by those who murdered him.

The fact that this little Catholic boy, youngthough he was, used reason in such a courageous manner in the face of Islamic fundamentalists is also notablyconsistent with the message of the Vatican in regard to Islam and how Christians should deal with Muslims in daily life.

In his famous Regensburg speech, which prompted Muslim outrage, Pope Benedict XVI exposed Islam asa religion that does not accept reason. He also expressed at length theimportance of reason in Christianity. Whenever and wherever Christians havebeen under the sword of Islam, such as in the case of Aasia Noreen(Asia Bibi), the Vatican hascontinually responded by calling upon Christians in “daily life” to be clear about the differencesbetween Christianity and Islam, and to appeal to reason in discussionswith individual Muslims.

Little Adam used his reason. “Enough, enough, enough,” hesaid, for two hours to the Islamists, before they murdered him. So it wasthat Adam, the Christian fundamentalist, fell under the “sword” of the Islamic fundamentalists. Nowhere is there amore clear example of Islam, the violent political/religoussystem vs. Christianity, where all are called to be “as little children”who must try to use reason with Muslim aggressors, than in Adam, a littleCatholic boy who, in my humble opinion, will someday be known as St. Adam ofBaghdad, the youngest saint of the Catholic Church.