THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, April 24, 1995 TAG: 9504240041
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
It fell to the preachers Sunday to carry out President Clinton's wish that the day be one of mourning for those who lost their lives in a senseless bombing in Oklahoma.
From pulpits around Hampton Roads, the clergy did its best to explain and interpret a gruesome event. If any pastors lacked a sermon early last week, they certainly had sufficient material by Saturday night.
The lessons to be learned were many, said preachers, deacons and congregation members. But underlying most messages was the idea that we, as a nation, are a community and we take care of one another. People recognized that the federal building blown up in Oklahoma City could just as well have been the red brick one on Granby Street.
At the 8 a.m. service in the Church of the Sacred Heart on Graydon Avenue in Ghent, the Rev. John Dorgan, used the tragedy as a path back to the central message of Christianity.
``We continue, even on this day of mourning, to celebrate Jesus's resurrection from the dead,'' Dorgan said.
During the time when parishioners offer their prayers for those in pain or distress, the Oklahoma tragedy was the only subject. For several minutes, words rang through the Catholic sanctuary of white plaster walls with its high vaulted ceiling.
``Let us pray for an end to all senseless violence, here and throughout the world,'' said a woman.
``We ask that you help us forgive those who perpetrated this act of violence,'' said one man, and that the tragedy not lead us ``to persecute groups of people.''
Dorgan had a special note in his sermon. A parishioner, he said, who asked not to be named, was in the YMCA building next to the federal building in Oklahoma City when it was bombed. In a sauna at the time, the church member and another man were virtually the only ones not injured.
``He and the other man spent their time carrying bleeding, injured and scared children out of the building,'' Dorgan said.
Now back home, the man is having difficulty integrating the experience into his life. `` `I came home and everyone is smiling and the sun is shining,'' Dorgan quoted the man as saying. `` `I feel so lonely because life is so normal here and so terrible there.' ''
Dorgan said church members cannot share the experience of those who suffered, ``But we can become one with them in prayer and in faith.''
Anne Gildea, a pastoral associate at Sacred Heart, said the bombing should push people to recognize that evil is not just a word in story books.
``Evil is a reality and we have to confront it,'' Gildea said.
A few blocks away, the Rev. Robert G. Murray picked up on the same theme at the First Baptist Church on Bute Street during the 11 a.m. service.
``Who would think that someone would think so demonically that they would blow up a building with children in it,'' Murray said.
Murray leads a largely African-American congregation at this 19th-century stone church.
During his sermon, Murray didn't just speak his thoughts. He grinned, gestured and bobbed on his heels. His voice rose and fell in tone and volume as he delivered the Word into the very laps of his parishioners. To him, last week's tragedy illustrated his message that we must prune the less necessary parts of our lives so they can fully flower. He reminded church members how rescue workers had to save a woman trapped by debris.
``The only way to save her life was to amputate one of her limbs,'' Murray said. ``There are times when we have to deal with things that we have to cut away.''
The events in Oklahoma gradually became the central theme of the two-hour service. During the time of prayer near the end, the congregation gathered close together at the front of the sanctuary and held hands while Murray spoke.
``We realize how fragile we are, how vulnerable we are, even if we catch people in a short time,'' Murray said, his eyes closed. ``For we cannot bring back those were taken away.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MOTOYA NAKAMURA
On President Clinton's proclaimed day of mourning, Hampton Roads
residents remembered the victims of the Oklahoma bombing.
Parishioners at First Baptist Church in Norfolk prayed for them,
while this tree on
I-64 near Mercury Boulevard, usually bearing seasonal messages,
displayed new symbols - of sympathy.
KEYWORDS: OKLAHOMA CITY EXPLOSION BOMB MEMORIAL SERVICE by CNB