Weep

“Jesus wept.” (John 11:35).

Jesus Wept (James Tissot)

“Jesus wept.” (John 11:35).

I have been thinking about that.

I have been thinking about what it means for God to cry.

When I was a little girl, it was a terrible thing to see my mother cry.  I love my mother very much and it was very confronting to see her upset to the point of tears.  I remember on the few occasions where that happened, I was overcome myself thinking that it was a terrible thing to see my mother cry.

And when I think about what upset me so much with my mother’s tears, I think particularly about how it felt to see someone who I loved so much suffer…

And so, to think of the weeping Christ, I am quite overcome.  After all, there must have been such terrible sorrow in the Heart of God to induce tears…

He saw Jerusalem and wept over it.  It made Christ – God-Man – so terribly sad to see that city…  And He wept when everyone was praising Him…  “the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen,” (Luke 19:37).

Christ did not weep for fear of His imminent death.  He wept because the people He came to save did not want to embrace peace…  “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes” (Luke 19:42).

Christ wept because of our hard-headedness…

God wept because I refuse to forgive.  I refuse to be a true Christian.  I am Christian in name and not heart.  God wept because I brought sin into the world and then refuse to take myself out of sin.

Christ wept thinking not only of the Jews in Jerusalem, but of me – sitting in my living room today.  He wept for me who prays to Him in the Church and then rejects Him through my unforgiving heart.  He wept because I am unable to weep.

Saint John Vianney was once hearing the confession of a man.  When the man confessed his sins, the Saint began to weep.  The man asked the Saint, “Father, why do you weep?”  The Saint replied, “I weep because you do not.”

And I have been thinking about that ever since. 

Perhaps the problem is not that my life is not happy enough – perhaps the problem is that it is too happy – with me floating on the surface and making demands of Our Lord, who only wants me to listen to Him and have mercy.

And I have been thinking about that today as I have been thinking that “Jesus wept.” (John 11:35).

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.