Cry, God, Cry!
From the desk of Fr. Ignatius Waters, cp
Sunday, 18th March 2018
“During his life on earth, Christ offered up prayer and entreaty, aloud and in silent tears.” Hebrews 5:7 (2nd reading today)
A little lad was listening in to some adults talking about life and the problems of life and when one of them said, “Well, all I know is – God is very good!” he piped up, “My Daddy is gooder than God!” The same little fellow was in a temper a few days later because he didn’t get what he wanted, and he stamped his foot in rage. And this ‘Daddy that was gooder than God’ looked up at the Sacred Heart picture on the wall and said, “If you do that again, God will cry!” And the little lad, still in a rage, looked up at the picture, stamped his foot again and said, “Cry, God, cry!”
This happened. You can see it happening. And even though the little fellow wasn’t impressed, this ‘Daddy that was gooder than God’ had good Theology too! Because he didn’t say, “If you do that again, God will be angry with you, or God won’t love you any more, or God will punish you.” No, he said God will be sad, God will cry.
And Jesus, who is the image of God for us, wept at least three times that we know of, and only God knows how many more. You remember he wept at the tomb of Lazarus, his friend. And, even though he knew better than anyone that eternal life follows death, it didn’t take away his pain and grief at the death of someone he knew and loved. It was the end of life as we know it and he was weeping for the whole human condition that he was part of.
Another time, as he drew near to Jerusalem, he wept for his own people: “If only you had understood the message of peace…but it is hidden from you.” In him we see the helplessness of God when people don’t want to be helped. Is it any wonder that we, too, often feel so helpless?
We know too that Jesus wept bitter tears of fear and frustration in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Father please spare me!” And in the letter to Hebrews it says, “During his life on earth, Jesus made his prayers with loud cries and tears to God who could save him.” So that’s all through his life! You could say Jesus was even more human than we are, not afraid or ashamed to let us see his tears and his anguish. If we prayed like that, we would probably hide it for fear of being regarded as weak or depressed. I remember in the Charismatic Renewal, we heard about the ‘gift of tears’ and we were singing “Spirit of the living God fall afresh on me, melt me, mould me”, and I used pray, “O dear God, please don’t give me that gift!” I was afraid because I could easily imagine myself melting and flowing out under the door!
Also, we see in almost every page of the gospel, that Jesus was deeply moved by the pain, sickness, suffering and living conditions of people, their bodily hunger and their spiritual hunger. But now, Jesus has no hands but ours to reach out to those in all kinds of needs. Sometimes we’re in need ourselves; sometimes we’re needed. The St. Vincent de Paul group is needed and does great work, the Adoration is needed, the family groups are needed, and the Legion of Mary can and does encourage people to begin again. There are over thirty groups in the Parish and every group and everyone has something to contribute; we need Martha and we need Mary!
If you feel called to join one of the groups in the parish and don’t know how to go about it, just ask one of the priests on the parish.