In our second reading today, St. Paul, in his letter to Timothy, asserts that God wants everyone to be saved and to come to full knowledge of the truth. For Paul, there is only one God, and it is his fervent wish that people of every race and nationality should come together to raise their hands in prayer, without anger or argument. He envisions a new world order of religious and political harmony.

I commend St. Paul on his faith, hope and idealism, and I wonder, in the light of our September 11 massacre, how we might even remotely apply his vision to our twenty-first century painfully divided world.

Last week, like so many people, I spent a good deal of time following the continuous news coverage of what was generally referred to as 'America under attack.' I also kept an eye on the papers etc so as to keep abreast of the latest developments. My hope, in engaging with the mass media in these ways was, not just to garner accurate information on what was happening out there on 'ground zero,' but also to get a balanced set of views on how we should deal with and respond to this mindless massacre. Sadly, I was somewhat disappointed in my latter quest. Allow me to share three examples with you.

An irate caller to one of the TV news stations embarks on an emotional tirade on Muslims and their religion, Islam: 'They're nothing but a fundamentalist lot who want to take over the entire world,' he screams, 'anyone who is not Muslim is fair game and a legitimate target in their so-called holy wars. The sooner we get rid of them the better!' Thankfully, the news presenter did manage to restore some order to this interview and even enlightened the irate and poorly informed caller about Islam. She explained to him that Islam is basically a peaceable religion. It's collection of sacred writings, the Koran, contains nothing that would incite vengeful and violent attacks on anyone. Indeed their founder and most revered prophet, Muhammad, is pictured in the Koran as a loving person, helping the poor and slow to revenge.

However, she did stress that, like many world religions there are extremist and radical elements, which sometimes choose to misguidedly take the law into their own hands and pervert the teachings of their religion. We must clearly distinguish between the peaceable and violent before making any inflammatory comment or judgment.

A few days ago I was flicking through the September 14 issue of Time magazine, and amidst the very graphic color pictures of the September 11 bombings I happened on one of their feature articles entitled: The case for Rage and Retribution by Lance Morrow. I could hardly believe the seething rage and hatred that underpinned his, in my opinion, demented musings. These are his words: 'A day cannot live in infamy without the nourishment of rage. Lets have rage. What's needed is a unified, unifying, Pearl Harbor sort of purple American fury - a ruthless indignation that doesn't leak away in a week or two.' He then calls for 'a policy of focused brutality' and asserts that America needs to relearn lost discipline, self-confident relentlessness - and to relearn why human nature has equipped us all with a weapon called hatred. Well, I now no longer wonder why hate crimes abound in our society, when this kind of vitriolic reporting is rife in our media.

My last example of unbalanced media reportage involves Phyllis and Orlando Rodriguez, whose son Greg died in the World Trade Center. They wrote to the New York Times about their belief that a violent response 'will not avenge our son's death.' 'Not in our son's name,' they wrote. As of this weekend, the letter has not been printed.

As a believing and practicing Christian community we must reject, in our media, what fuels hatred, racism and prejudice. We must allow the love of God to overcome our own fears, defensiveness and denial and to penetrate the barriers that continue to separate us a human family.

Father, enfold us in your love. Jesus, be with us on our journey. Spirit, lead us to the truth. Amen.