SOMEONE TO CRY OVER ME
Thursday of the Thirty-Third Week in Ordinary Time
My dear encountered couples:
Jesus cried over the city of Jerusalem. The people there wouldn’t listen to him. Oh, they stood around and listened, but they wouldn’t do what he was telling them to do. Parents cry over their children for the same reason.
Does anybody listen to anybody? Or do we all just do what we want, regardless of advice, regardless of warnings, regardless of how smart and knowledgeable the other person is?
I think that’s the way it is with most of us. We do what we want and leave much of our learning to personal experience. When we fail, we learn. When we’re successful, we learn. When we make mistakes or do the right things, we learn. If we don’t do anything at all, maybe we even learn something from that.
But the question is: Does all that learning do us any good? Do we use what we learn to make the future better?
Look at our world today. There is so much pain, conflict, war, and strife in our world. And the saddest reality is: we, human beings, create and perpetuate the devastation and pain! Yes, there are many natural disasters. However, most of the pain and sorrow in our world is a result of humanity’s inhumanity to one another. Today Jesus looks down on us and asks: Haven’t you learned anything? Why do you perpetuate such pain and sorrow? You not only hurt the other, you also hurt yourself and those you love.
Jesus came to help people out. He didn’t want us to have to suffer from doing so many dumb and stupid things. Many of his own people refused to pay any attention to him. They made him cry. Do we?