The Patrick Madrid Show How Can I Help My Students Make Sense of This Tragedy? (Special Podcast Highlight)
This episode of The Patrick Madrid Show is tender, raw, and packed with grace.
It all starts with an email from Aaron, a Catholic school teacher who teaches grades 2–8. His school just suffered a devastating tragedy: a young boy — just about to enter sixth grade — was killed in an accident. Aaron, heartbroken, is reaching out for help. He's thinking ahead: how do I help my students process this? What do I say when they ask, “Why did God allow this?”
What Patrick Said:
“Words can only go so far.” He starts there — with brutal honesty. When your heart is shattered, “God is with you” can feel... empty, even if it’s true.
Patrick encourages him to use the moment as a “Catechetical Popcorn Trail” Start small and lay the groundwork. Help kids understand why death even exists by going back to Adam and Eve, the Fall, and the entrance of sin into the world. This tragedy, as awful as it is, becomes a gateway into the bigger story of salvation.
“Death is not natural. It’s not how we were meant to live.” God created us for life, forever, with Him. Death entered through sin. That helps kids understand their instincts are right — this feels wrong because it is wrong. But that’s not the end...
Jesus didn’t just die — He conquered death. Kids can look at the crucifix with new eyes. He chose to suffer, chose to die, so that death wouldn’t be the final word for us.
But Also... Teach Them This:
Original Sin is not the same as personal sin. Patrick offers a great analogy: Imagine your billionaire parents lose all their wealth due to a crime. You didn't do anything, but you still lose the inheritance. That’s original sin. Through baptism, God gives it all back, and more.
This boy might be in heaven. Patrick encourages Aaron to comfort the students with hope — if the boy was in 5th grade, it would make sense that he probably never committed a mortal sin. That’s theologically solid hope.
Teach them how to pray for him, through offering Masses and praying the Chaplet. Let them participate in his journey to Heaven.
The Most Beautiful Part
At the end of the show, Aaron calls in; he just wants to say thank you. You can hear how much he loves his students and how much he’s leaning on the Holy Spirit. It’s one of those quiet holy moments that makes you realize the Church is so alive in people like him.
If You’re a Teacher, Parent, or Just a Catholic Who Cares…
This episode is worth your time. It reminds us that grief is the place faith speaks loudest. Our job isn’t to “fix” grief. It’s to walk through it with others, pointing to the Cross... and beyond it, to the Resurrection.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.