Who Weeps

“Adam, where are you?” This is the first question that God addresses to man after sin. “Where are you Adam?” Adam is disoriented and has lost his place in creation because he thought to become powerful, to dominate everything, to be God. And harmony was broken, the man erred – and this is repeated even in relations with his neighbour, who is no longer a brother to be loved, but simply someone who disturbs my life, my well-being. And God puts the second question: “Cain, where is your brother?” The dream of being powerful, of being as great as God, even of being God, leads to a chain of errors that is a chain of death, leads to shedding the blood of the brother!” 

These two questions resonate even today, with all their force! So many of us, even including myself, are disoriented, we are no longer attentive to the world in which we live, we don’t care, we don’t protect that which God has created for all, and we are unable to care for one another. And when this disorientation assumes worldwide dimensions, we arrive at tragedies like the one we have seen.” 

But God asks each one of us: “Where is the blood of your brother that cries out to me?”

“Who has wept?” Who in today’s world has wept? Pope FrancisI took this quote from Whispers in the Loggia, (which I suggest you read in it’s entirety) I copied it because it goes right to my gut…right to the heart of where we stand as a people.   It goes to why we should repent and we should repent. I should repent.  What I hear here is truth, is the spoken gospel, is the urgency of one who understands that the point of Jesus was to re-orient us to God.  We, as people, are so distracted.  We cannot seem to wake up even when we have splashed with water.  And yet….And yet…I do not think it is all lost.  Because we do weep…not always, not as often as we should.  We are still complacent.  But there are so many who do weep and who do mourn and who do try to make change in what he is talking about.  He is right, as our spiritual leader, to suggest that none of us are doing enough.  It is a hard pill to swallow and yet this is exactly as I pictured what Jesus would make me feel like in person. It isn’t shame that is being doled out here, it is a call to a deeper and truer compassion.  Each of us has to determine what that means in our own lives.  Each of us has to look into our hearts and see where we err.  There is nothing fun about that but in doing so we allow a deeper and truer love to envelop us. Christian love.  A love that lives, laughs, suffers and dies but is resurrected by the ultimate love, who is God. Today I ask in all humility, “what is it you want me to do, God?”