Carissima Familia, “let my eyes run down with tears night and day and let them not cease”. (Jer. 14:17-18)
In the middle of the glory of summer, Holy Church gives us the sound that puts things into perspective. There was a wonderful interview the other day with the Philosopher, Dr. Peter Kreeft, for which I put a link on our parish page. One of the things he said that kind of struck me was, “you know, if only we took the words of Jesus literally, we’d be okay”. Now, we wouldn’t be okay if we were taking say the passages from Genesis out of its of historical context and reading it as a literal scientific record ( it’s amazing to me how some people will fight to the death over whether or not the world was created in seven days, but then utterly ignore the Lord saying, “unless you eat my body and drink my blood, you have no life in you”. People are very selective in all of this, and we too love softening the words of the Lord. They are words of love but often for us, love means, “let’s just let things slide because we want to be happy.” Then we convince ourselves that you know, “weeping and gnashing of teeth” is the old way of speaking which we’ve grown out of. Really?
Explain that to the people in Gaza and Ukraine. Sudan and Eritrea and Pakistan. Explain to them that Jesus didn’t really mean that there will be no reckoning of their suffering because there is no judgment and separation of “all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 13:41-42) Explain to them that we’ve grown up and that it’s “all good.” Do not worry.
However, when we see as the prophet Jeremiah sees there is no avoiding reality.
For the virgin daughter of my people, is struck down with a crushing blow with a very grievous wound. Let my eyes run down with tears. (Jer. 14:17-18)
In the Early Church, indeed for the first centuries of the Church, it was presumed that when people prayed, they wept. They were supposed to cry. If you couldn’t cry, then you weren’t praying. Pope Francis said something like that, “A priest who cannot cry is not a priest”. It’s his typically blunt way of explaining things. But it is utterly true. For one thing, as the Brazilians say, “the eyes are the kidneys of the soul” [Os olhos são os rins da alma].. It means when you weep, it’s your soul being purified. But sadly, we’ve taken so many antidepressants that we are unable to feel things deeply. Or our antidepressants is our dissipation of our energies through gluttony of the eyes, we see such violence constantly before us that we don’t know how to weep. We have become inured, numbed to grievous wounds.
I remember my professor of the Old Testament, dear Father RAF McKenzie, a great expert at the Vatican Council. He couldn’t get through Mass without weeping. We would go in for noon Mass – You think my Masses are long? – His would sometimes last For an hour and a half, it got a little silly because he’d start sobbing in the middle of the Eucharistic prayer or during the Reading of the Gospel. And he wasn’t crazy, (although he dressed crazily in clothes from Salvation Army). He was utterly brilliant and utterly attuned to the world.
May our tears show us that we attend to the Lord and the Lord’s People who suffer. And may our tears pour out for the people who are weeds planted by the Devil. Yes, we can pray for these people, not the causes of sin, but people who become a cause of sin, who will be reaped at the end of the age. We can weep for them. We might find ourselves weeping for ourselves.
And the Lord mixes those tears with the Wine at the Altar and it becomes His Blood for the life of the world.
Let us be holy. Let us be saints.