Without seeing You we love You.
Without touching You we embrace.
Without knowing You we follow.
Without seeing You we believe.

So today’s Mass was more about building community and all that, but I guess it got me into deeper thinking, probably because of the first two readings. Anyway, so if you think about it, we so easily say that we love God and show our feelings to this Lord that we barely know and never seen before, and yet we trust in Him with everything we have. During our hardest times, during our weakest times, during our most faithless times, He is the person we go to.

Isn’t it amazing how we can so easily go to Him without wondering what if?
And isn’t it amazing how we can so easily pour out everything unto Him without worrying what He’ll say?
And isn’t it amazing how we already know that He has unconditional love for us?
We barely know Him, but He still loves us through everything.

But then, how come we can’t do the same to our own family and friends? It’s just so much more difficult. We wonder what they’ll think. We wonder who we should go to during certain times. But if we were all made in God’s likeness and image, we should just so easily be able to love and confide in these people around us as we do with Him.

And just as so, we should try more to be like Him so that people will be able to come to us just because they could see Him in us. Without seeing, touching, or knowing, we should be able to love, embrace, follow, and believe in each other as we do in Him, and from that grow as a community under Him.

And Fr. John said that he sees something we never see during Mass, so I went to see this “Priest cam” he was talking about from Easter Mass. And I’ve got to say, it is pretty amazing. We really are the Body of Christ.

When the Virginia Tech massacre happened, I was in Sophomore year and had no idea that I’d be here as an undergraduate student three years later. Frankly, I was really shocked when I heard the news. My heart went out to this school. But now that I actually attend this school, I can see how this school could’ve been really really shaken. Yeah there’s so many different groups of friends and all since after all it is a HUGE school, but what I’ve gotten from this school is that it’s really one body of students. Some of the people I’ve met while being here just turn out to be some of the most amazing dynamic people I know of. I don’t know. When people ask me if I like VT and I usually reply with a “Eh I guess it’s alright.” But now I don’t know, something about this school, just don’t know what it is, but it grows on you. I can see why we have so much Hokie alumni pride, hahah.

Anyway, the purpose of this post! LOL When I think about this day, yeah of course I remember the lives taken and the image of a nation shaken. But the one story that stood out to me out of all was the story of Professor Liviu Librescu. When I read his story, I was just awed and amazed at the love and courage of this one man. Here’s his story:

At age 76, Librescu was among the 32 people who were murdered in the Virginia Tech massacre. On April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho entered Norris Hall Engineering Building and opened fire on classrooms. Librescu, who taught a solid mechanics class in Room 204 in the Norris Hall during April 2007, held the door of his classroom shut while Cho attempted to enter it. Although he was shot through the door, Librescu managed to prevent the gunman from entering the classroom until most of his students had escaped through the windows. He was struck by five bullets, with a shot to the head proving to be fatal. Of the 23 registered students in his class, only one, Minal Panchal, died.

A number of Librescu’s students have called him a hero because of his actions. Caroline Merrey, a senior, said she and about 20 other students scrambled through the windows as Librescu shouted for them to hurry. Merrey said, “I don’t think I would be here if it wasn’t for [Librescu].” Librescu’s son Joe said he had received e-mails from several students who said he had saved their lives and regarded him as a hero.

Following the murder of Librescu, at the request of his family and with the assistance of Gov. Tim Kaine, his body was released on April 17 and he received a funeral service at a Jewish Orthodox funeral home in Borough Park, Brooklyn, New York City, New York. On April 20, he was interred in Israel. In his native Romania, his picture was placed on a table at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, and a candle was lit. People laid flowers nearby.

The massacre took place on Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah). On April 18, 2007, President of the United States George Bush honored Librescu at a memorial service held at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, attended by a crowd that included many Holocaust survivors:

“That day we saw horror, but we also saw quiet acts of courage. We saw this courage in a teacher named Liviu Librescu. With the gunman set to enter his class, this brave professor blocked the door with his body while his students fled to safety. On the Day of Remembrance, this Holocaust survivor gave his own life so that others may live. And this morning we honor his memory and we take strength from his example.”

Wow. That is what I call a hero who shows true love and compassion.