In this Sunday’s gospel, a wealthy man who seeks wisdom from Jesus goes away troubled by what he hears. People around the world were troubled to hear of a deadly air strike by U.S. forces on a hospital in the Afgan city of Kunduz, and troubled as well by the initial distant and detached comments made by U.S. military personnel when asked about the attack that killed 22 people. That tone has changed in the past several days, with the U.S. military explicitly taking responsibility for the deadly air strike Tuesday and President Obama personally apologizing to Medecins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders), who ran the hospital and lost personnel in the attack.

Homily hint: “Collateral damage,” often used to refer to civilian casualties in a war, is a term that should be discarded. The impersonal nature of the phrase adds insult to the injury caused to innocent civilians and their loved ones when they are casualties of war. Truth be told, everyone involved in a war or conflict is a casualty in some way or another—physically, emotionally, spiritually. Let’s pray for peace today, and every day.

For more on the hospital strike, see: Pentagon calls Afghan hospital strike a mistake, seeks accountability; Obama apologizes to Doctors Without Borders for U.S. bombing of hospital