BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) You could sum up the past two weeks in Buffalo with the words devastation and despair.
A catastrophic blizzard claimed 42 lives. A tragic fire on Dartmouth
Avenue in Buffalo killed five young children. And the bright spot for the region, the Buffalo Bills, became a source of anguish when Safety Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest during a prime time game in Cincinnati Monday night.
"It's been a spectacularly tragic couple of weeks." said Father Paul Seil, Pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Buffalo, and Chaplain for the Buffalo Fire Department.
"When you have a fire like this, there is so much overwhelming emotion. When I got there the children had already been evacuated to the hospital. The grandfather and an Aunt were there. I was there to listen to them and comfort them as well as some neighbors."
Seil described what he did as "going into automatic reflex" in a situation like that.
He quickly added, it's the post-effect that really gets to you as far as realizing the depth of what has happened. "I was speaking to one of the firefighters later in the evening, who has young children of his own. Something like this can take a terrible toll on everyone in the community."
When Damar Hamlin went down on the field Monday night in Cincinnati, Seil said he was struck by the immediate response of the players, out of love for their teammate, to drop to their knees and do what they could do, which was to pray. When you see this, he said, it's very powerful.
"In Christianity and in all religions, there is a belief in a higher power, or a God. In Christianity, we believe that God is love. St. Paul tells us that these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
To that point, Fr. Seil said not everybody believes in God. But everybody believes in love. "We try to show that love in whatever way we can, sometimes it's materially, by taking up collections. Or, getting goods or materials for people to get their life back in order. Sometimes it's funeral costs and getting people to help pay for that. In the immediate term, it's to show people that they are loved," he said.
The Pastor found a similarity between the fire and the Damar Hamlin medical emergency. "When the football players dropped to their knees, they were saying, God, this is our teammate. We love him and want what is best for him. And, on Dartmouth Avenue, we're dropping to our knees, physically, if not spiritually, by saying, we're with you and want to comfort you."
