Pflugerville, Home of the Austin Bomber and Me Too
The young man said to the elderly woman, “Would you like a shopping cart?” He left her with a cart and a cheerful wave. Inside the store, we smiled at each other and graciously let each other pass. We nodded with smiles at each other in the HEB parking lot.
That’s Pflugerville, my little home town outside of Austin. Hardly anyone outside of Central Texas would bother to know this place with a funny name. Except today.
Today everyone in the world knows Pflugerville as the hometown of a man who built bombs to kill and injure and strangle a community with fear and later blew himself up.
The grocery cashier, bagger and I talked about how the man lived right near the HEB and how we probably drove past him on the road. We talked about his poor mom and how we are heartbroken with her. We talked about how you just don’t know who you are walking and talking with every day.
But I would like to argue that the people of Pflugerville pass by people like me everyday too. I’m the one praying the rosary for me and for you. I look out at the intersection and pray for the healing and well-being of people passing through. I try to smile at the people in the store or offer a cart or graciously let people pass.
Most of us are like that.
And while everyone in the world today knows the name of Mark A. Conditt, the Austin Bomber of Pflugerville, Texas, and almost no one knows my name or the rest of us who are trying to spread love, I would argue that when the books are opened at the end of the age, those of us who tried to do good accomplished more in the world than those who wrought evil.
The little white Host held in the hands of the priest at the elevation of the Eucharist at Mass is more powerful than all the evil in the world combined. One mention of the name of Jesus is more powerful than every instance of evil combined. One act of good does far more for the world than any act of evil, even if no one knows it right at that moment.
So, today, in Pflugerville, I am going to pray for you and send you my love. And it will do more for the world than evil did.