On Patriot’s Day (celebrated in Massachusetts and Maine) in Boston Monday we know that evil—in whatever form it comes to be known—foreign or domestic, singular or collective—reared its ugly head. People died and many were injured, lives will be forever changed. What was intended to be a day of joy and triumph turned, in just a few seconds, into grief and fear. The human condition is corruptible.

On Tuesday the reading of the daily Mass included the Gospel of John (6:30-35) which asks the question of Jesus Christ, “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you?” As we review the horrific events of Patriot’s Day 2013 in Boston we certainly see evil but if we look more closely we see the signs being performed by people in Christ’s name: signs, and indeed wonders of the human spirit as police, firefighters, EMTs, and everyday volunteers ran towards danger to help another. Just as we witnessed the Good in people on that terrible day in Manhat-tan on September 11th as like-minded first responders ran into the burning and collapsing World Trade Towers to help complete strangers, God gave us a sign on Monday: evil will not triumph over Good, which is found in the human spirit infused by God’s grace. In this we recognize that “there is no greater Love than to lay down one’s life for a friend.” (John 15) As we ask the inevitable questions of “Why” and “How,” let us also pose the ultimate question of “where was God in this horrible act?” Indeed He was present in the kindness, in the compassion, in the help of one stranger for another. The world may call it many things—nature, human instinct—but it is the presence of God among His human children and their willingness to take on the opportunities He places in our paths. We must look for the good, highlight it, and spread it around in whatever way we are able to do. Let us always believe that the antidote to hatred and violence is compassion and forgiveness.