These reflections are a result of more than 40 years of ministry as a Roman Catholic priest. Most of these years I spent in the Diocese of Charlotte which covers Western North Carolina. Now I am retired, and live in Medellín, Colombia where I continue to serve as a priest in the Archdiocese of Medellín.

MONDAY, WEEK VI, ORDINARY TIME

Then the LORD asked Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”
He answered, “I do not know. 
Am I my brother’s keeper?”
The LORD then said: “What have you done!
Listen: your brother’s blood cries out to me from the soil!
(Gen 4:1-15,25)

In 1996, I went to Washington, D.C., to take panels from North Carolina to be included in the AIDS Names Quilt that was being displayed on the Mall. As a part of my visit I went to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. I found myself in the Hall of Remembrance at the museum and I saw the inscription, “What have you done? Hark, thy brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.” And right outside on the Mall were the panels of the Quilt with the names of all my brothers and sisters who had died from AIDS. And then I realized that we had let it happen again.