Another school shooting, another call for thoughts and prayers

It's happened again.

Another inexplicable school shooting, this time in Uvalde, Texas.

Nineteen elementary students, including one who got an award at an assembly earlier in the day, died Tuesday along with two adults.

The 18-year-old gunman is also dead -- shot by responding law enforcement.

The massacre in south Texas, 54 miles from the Mexico border, is the second-worst K-12 school shooting in U.S. history, happening two days before summer break.

Worst school massacres

• 2007: 33 died at Virginia Tech University. A 23-year-old gunman, wielding two semi-automatic pistols, later killed himself with police stormed the building.
• 2012: 26 perished at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. A 20-year-old man, who had killed his mother just prior to his school killing spree, died of a self-inflicted gunshot.
• 2018: 17 lost their lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida. A 19-year-old, armed with an AR-15 rifle, wandered three floors of the school. Afterward, the killer went to a mall where police captured him.
• 1999: 15 died after two teenagers armed with pistols, pump shotguns and a carbine rifle unleashed a campaign of death before committing suicide.

Unfortunately, there are more horrific school incidents like the aforementioned but space will not permit a full accounting.

Helplessness

"I am so tired of getting up here and offering condolences," said NBA Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr last week. "I am tired of moments of silence. Enough."

U.S. House Rep. Darrell Issa of California, upon learning of Tuesday's killings, tweeted out "thoughts and prayers."

One of Issa's colleagues, Ruben Gallego of Arizona, responded with his own tweet directed at Issa:

"(Expletive) your prayers. They haven't worked for the last 20 mass shootings, so how about passing laws that will stop (them)?"

My take

I tend to agree with Alfred Lord Tennyson, a 19th-century English poet, who once wrote: "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of."

However well my thoughts may resonate with Tennyson, my existential self also agrees with words captured in the 1966 film, "A Man for All Seasons."

In the movie's screenplay, Sir Thomas More, today a Roman Catholic saint, urges prayer to respond to the childlessness of Catherine, the wife of legendary 16th century English King Henry VIII, who has been unable to produce a male heir for the throne.

Cardinal Wolsey, who seeks a divorce for Henry to allow the king to marry another woman able to conceive, replies to More's suggestion in a direct fashion.

"Pray. Pray by all means. But in addition to prayer, there is effort."

I agree with Tennyson. Prayer is God's gift to human beings.

I'm also sympathetic, to a degree, with the expressed thoughts of Wolsey, which are almost certainly apocryphal but still noteworthy.

While I don't condone the expediency of Wolsey's attitude, which is to say marriage should not ever be thrown away because of childlessness, the cleric's frustration is real and vexing to him.

Pray, yes, but do something.

Jesus did more than talk a good game.

The Master did more than pray to His Father, an absolutely vital practice that ensured Jesus was able to see his mission through right to the end.

Jesus backed up his words with action -- dying on a cross to get something done, which was -- and is -- salvation.

When will we ever get to action in our time, I wonder?