Tears in January and Jesus
Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, and the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus, if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right. (Søren Kierkegaard).
Literally and metaphorically Kierkegaard makes sense. We are in January, a month known to be depressing. I just got off the phone and sent an email trying to address the depression and struggle involved with ill health and difficult circumstances some of my friends are facing. Part of my message to them: Look for the sun in January. It is normally a depressing month, but as Christians we have an edge because Jesus cares for us.
We know that Jesus wept on occasion. He wept over Jerusalem; he wept at the loss of his friend Lazarus, and he wept in Gethsemane at the very human prospect of pain and suffering. We often hear the expression “men don’t cry,” but God does. The incarnation of Jesus was to bring us the love that God has for his creation.
I was struck this past Christmas by the presence of ox and lamb in the creche. The old bloody sacrifices on the altar of the temple were coming to an end. The new sacrifice of love in the lamb of God would fulfill Hosea’s prophecy, “I desire mercy, not sacrifices” (Hosea 6:6). “But go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I have come not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:13).
Compassion! The sympathetic consciousness of others' distress, together with a desire to alleviate it! The poor, the sick and the suffering are always close to the heart of Jesus. The greatest saints were close to the suffering of Jesus and partook of his suffering. Our Lord said to St Bernard, “I will remit all the venial sins, and I will no more think of the mortal sins of those who honour the grievous wound on my right shoulder, which caused me unutterable pain when bearing my heavy cross to Calvary.”
Empathy! The ability to share someone else’s feelings or experience by imagining what it would be like to be in that person’s situation. Jesus allowed some of his saints to share the pains of his crucifixion. St Francis of Assisi, St Catherine of Sienna and Padre Pio are some of the well-known saints who suffered the stigmata, the wounds of the crucified Christ. Being close to God means joy. “Nothing is wanting to him who possesses God,” said St Teresa of Avila.
Michael Angelo’s Pieta [from the Latin pity] is perhaps the greatest work of art depicting empathy and compassion. The Virgin Mary confronts the reality of the death of her son. Yet it is serene and tranquil, and Mary is graceful in her acceptance of it. Mary tilts her head toward Christ, while his head is thrown back in the helplessness of human death. Mary’s exposed left hand invites us to meditate on the death of her son, while delicately recognizing the newness of life.
Jane Merczewski (Nightbirde), dying of cancer, said: “If something so impossibly catastrophic and unimaginably awful can happen, then doesn't it also mean that something impossibly beautiful and redemptive can happen.
(583 words)
