Prince Hamlet vs Las Vegas Shooter

About this sermon

During the tragedy play called Hamlet, there is that famous scene…that well known soliloquy…where good Prince Hamlet begins by saying…to be or not to be, that is the question. Prince Hamlet is not like Claudius…Hamlet has a conscience. Hamlet fears God and the Divine Judgment that is to come. Despite all his troubles…despite all his sorrows at losing his father…despite all his worries that Claudius seeks to have him killed…Hamlet will not blindly kill the king nor will the good prince seek to end it all with suicide. His Catholic conscience will not be violated. Revenge and despair are sins. In this famous soliloquy, Prince Hamlet also states that if he were to seek revenge arbitrarily or to kill himself, he would be filled with a great dread of something happening after death, namely, Divine Judgment. His Catholic conscience…Hamlet’s fear of the particular judgment that would follow his death…causes him to put aside his twisted plans of murder or self-murder. As Hamlet states: conscience does make cowards of us all. This past Sunday, at around 10 PM Pacific Time, more than 20,000 people were gathered together to hear the final act of a country-western concert. At 10:05 PM, a volley of gunshots began raining down from the 32nd floor of a Las Vegas resort and casino. The automatic gunfire lasted for about 11 minutes. But in that very short span of time, Stephen Paddock, a 64 year old real-estate investor, former mailman, and chronic gambler, from Mesquite, Nevada, used an arsenal of guns to kill at least 59 people and wound more than 500. Immediately the media…journalists from newspapers and television began to ask the question…WHY…why did he do it? What was his motivation? Was it ideological? Was it political or religious? Was he a Jihadi…a recent apostate fighting for the cause of Mohammed? Was he wanting to be famous…or better yet…infamous…a man forever hated that’s true, but a man that will never be forgotten to history? But instead of asking the question WHY?, the press and others should have been asking the question, WHY NOT? Yes…why not commit this massacre? As one commentator wrote: The real question is what turned Paddock into a psychopath without conscience or a moral code that would scream to him that what he was planning was pure evil. For more please visit http:///www.reginaprophetarum.org & remember to say 3 Hail Marys for the priest