A teacher's heroism

How does one make sense of this?  One might be tempted to ask: where is God?  How can he allow such evil? We know that Our Lord allows evil in order that a greater good may come from it.  We must trust in Our Lord’s Providence knowing that this is the case.  Perhaps, the story of first grade teacher, 27-year-old Victoria Soto is illustrative of this.  As the murderer began unloading ammunition into the classrooms, Ms. Soto took action and huddled her first grade students into a closet.  She then huddled around them, shielding them from the bullets that began to rain down upon them.  In the end, the six and seven year olds were saved and their teacher died.

The most perfect lesson that Ms. Soto ever taught her children was that morning.  She taught them that the greatest thing one can do is “to lay down his life for a friend.”  The highest duty of a teacher is to instruct in virtue.  She taught them the greatest of the virtues—love.  Her actions were a reflection of God’s love and a special grace for a nation and a world that has been touched by her heroism.  Maybe God permitted this awful event to wake us up from the torpor of our comfortable American lives to something that is truly important—the value of every human life.  Victoria Soto did not die in vain and no doubt, her “kids” (as she called them) will remember throughout their lives what she taught them.  Perhaps then, first in accepting and then in understanding the Providence of God, they will be with her again “where every tear will be wiped away.”

-from the Bellarmine Forum