By Eric Martin
Steve Angrisano, the internationally renowned singer and presenter from Coppell, Texas, pulled no punches in his delivery to the Australia’s young Catholics at the Australian Catholic Youth Festival (ACYF) on Sunday afternoon, 8 December 2019.
“The God we serve is greater than any tragedy that we can inflict on each other,” he told his enrapt audience.
“That’s what it means to be Catholic, to be part of a community that knows that God always wins in the end.”
Steve’s message for the youth of ACYF during his first session focused on his personal account of God triumphing over tragedy, during the events of the Columbine High School shooting on April 20, 1999, in Columbine, Colorado – the town that Steve and his family called home at that time.
“I lived there and I worked at the local church – and I still can’t explain why all of these shootings happen,” Steve said.
“Being there, it was just like it appeared on TV: you feel like you are walking and talking in a dream. I don’t even know how to explain it to you, I can’t even begin.”
Four of the families whose teenagers were gunned down on that day in 1999, attended the local church which Steve worked at and they asked him if he would be able to perform the music at the funerals for their children.
“The mom that I’m thinking of told me that she always gives her son a hug when he leaves the house, but on that day, she was up at six making him waffles and forgot to give him that last hug before he left for school.”
“He never came home that day and suddenly this mother was making decisions totally outside of what was expected for that day, from what kind of breakfast to have to trying to decide what song to play for communion at her son’s funeral.”
Steve shared that even though that mother answered him politely, looking into her eyes the raw pain and emotion was clear:
“’What kind of music do I want to play at my son’s funeral? How about no song; how about no funeral; how about, I get to wake up from this impossible dream, and walk into his room and see my son. And I wake him up and say, “Your Dad’s making waffles, how many do you want?”
“That’s the kind of decision I thought I’d be making today, not what song to play for communion at his funeral.
“She told me after the service that she could only compare having her teenage son murdered to having her heart ripped out of her chest while still alive.”
“Why does this happen?” Steve asked.
“I’ve spent my entire life in the United States and I have never seen anybody shoot anyone, I’ve never had a gun pulled on me: It’s not like every day is dangerous, but obviously there’s something wrong and I don’t know, I just don’t know what it is.
“But it did happen in my town.”
Steve went on to share that even during such a horrific tragedy, God was still at work, not by preventing the massacre from taking place – he holds free-will inviable, even choices that result in such tragic consequences for those who make them – but by miraculously preventing further injury from occurring.
“There were so many miracles that day: God, even though he honoured the free-will of the two shooters who had decided to cause such harm, he reached down and into those hallways, where hundreds of teenagers were fleeing from the bullets of the shooters behind them, and he said ‘No more.’
Besides those who were shot at close range, there were no other injuries reported on that day: despite the hundreds of bullets spraying around, smashing ceiling tiles, breaking windows and other debris being flung by the impacts, no one else was hurt.
“The official report some years later pointed out just how incredibly unlikely this was, but we knew it was a miracle within the space of about four hours,” Steve shared.
“I have a deep faith that you and I are unique, that we are made with the fingerprint of God on us,” he said.
After 15 years of sharing the story and thinking about what happened, Steve shared the answer that he, personally, takes as the reason for why God seems to let these horrible things happen.
“You and I are the only beings in the universe that are made in the image and likeness of God. We are the only organisms in the universe that create not just for food, or shelter – we create for the sheer joy of creating.” Steve explained.
“We are the only beings that can envision or imagine: there is no animal that can imagine needing a sweatshirt tomorrow, or needing an umbrella tonight.
“Well it turns out that the ability to create and the ability to destroy are the same thing. You are given a gift, and what you choose to do with it can make a difference. Will you choose to create and not to destroy?”
“With great power, comes great responsibility.”
The mother whose son was killed at Columbine High School that day stood next to Steve later, at the funeral.
“She said to me, ‘The only reason that I’m standing here today, is that I know that God is bigger than this. And we gather here today because we know that whatever evil we choose to perpetrate on each other, God will still win in the end.”