For so many people, God is a loving, but distant, God who seems so remote and removed from our daily, ordinary lives. The Jesus in today’s gospel gives us a poignant, tender image of God: Jesus is sad, his heart is broken, because he sees Jerusalem and it’s magnificent Temple but knows in the depths of his heart that it will all be destroyed. This destruction COULD have been avoided, IF ONLY the people had changed their ways and opened their hearts to the arrival of the messiah. Their hearts were so hardened that they just couldn’t imagine the messiah entering this soon to be destroyed city with its Temple riding on a donkey; they wanted him to come riding into the city on a powerful horse carrying a sword of vengeance.
Yes, God’s heart CAN be broken!!! God, Jesus, is saying words we so often say to ourselves: “Ifonly...”
If only we can see the destructive force of racism...
If only I saw the warning sign of my son’s addiction...
If only I realized how cruel my words were/are...
If only I spent more time with my children...
If only we see how people near us are suffering...
If only we see how God is being pushed away...
If only we bishops/priests had listened to the abused..
Many will read all these “if only’s” and say, “What’s the point? Can’t cry over spilt milk. What’s done is done.”
In blithely dismissing what “could have been,” we fail to make real “what CAN happen NOW.” The point is not to hit us over the head with guilt but to create an opening for change. It’s never too late to allow for new possibilities to emerge from the ashes of what might have been.
Jesus is crying over what is about to happen to Jerusalem, but those tears will create the waters of rebirth... the waters of a NEW Jerusalem that won’t come to an end. It’s NEVER too late...
to change the way one expresses hurt...
to try and repair a wounded marriage....
to spend more time with a grown up son/daughter...
to learn about our country’s troubled history of slavery born of racism... to say “I’m sorry”...
to let my heart be broken, allowing grace to seep in..
to be forgiven by God
to make THIS Christmas focus on Christ’s birth...
to let people know how vital your faith is...
It’s never too late....
Peace, Joy,
Fr. Frank