Tomorrow is the one year memorial of the Sandy Hook tragedy. I was reading Jennifer Hubbard’s reflection in the Magnificat about her daughter Catherine being killed. Somehow, I was then reminded of the Fall — our Fall from Grace way back in Eden — when we chose to disobey and eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

And I know for certain God always intended to give us this fruit, this knowledge. Why else would He create such a thing otherwise? A thing that was “good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for the knowledge it would give”?

DO NOT EAT. DUH!

But He wanted us to wait. The fruit was not ready, not yet ripe, and we were not ready. He was saving the fruit, waiting for the right time when it was safe for consumption.

But we wanted to know, and the fruit was still bitter and our digestive system was not mature for it. It was like us feeding solid food to ourselves as newborns. And we got terribly sick.

And this is why there is evil in our world now… we asked to taste it, to bring it into us, to know it, and it has ravaged us with its poisons. The goodness and sweetness of the fruit we forsook when we couldn’t wait, when we chose to have the immature flavor instead.

And we are far from done. Evil can get far worse. We have not yet known its full decadence and toxin. The worse is yet to come. We indeed wanted to know, so now we’re still finding out how wicked it can taste.

Yet, New Fruit has been given to us by the New Eve. The Blessed Fruit of Her womb turns water into wine, and wine into His Precious Blood. He turns bread into His Sacred Heart. Stop settling for the unripe, the bitter, the disgusting, and seek instead the true life, true sweetness, true hope. Salve Regina, Mater misericordiae, vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve…

The Fall, and then The New.