IF ONLY….
“As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it. If only you recognised on this day the things that make for peace!” (Luke 19:42)
Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died. (Jn. 11:21)
Lord if only….
Lord, if only you had been here when the tropical storm hit landfall and homes were de-stroyed and people died…
If only you had been here when the forest fires raged and trees and forest creatures were re-duced to ashes.
If only you had been here when the floods engulfed towns and villages depositing a sickening mass of sludge burying everything in its path
If only you had been here when the bombs began to drop in Palestine, Ukraine, and so many other places, obliterating whole cities and killing the innocent on an industrial scale
Lord if only….
As you looked out over the city that you loved, your sorrow was so great that you wept.
You wept because your people chose violence and war instead of peace and love.
You weep for us now, Lord, in our addiction to violence and war and our blindness and refusal to accept the message of the Gospel of peace.
Lord, you continue to weep over our world where hundreds of thousands of people are on the move, fleeing from war, destruction and death; where little children are abused and starved and will grow up without ever having experienced a safe and secure childhood; where bombs rain down daily on innocent populations, destroying their homes and massacring their loved ones.
There is no doubt that Jesus surely weeps. Do we weep? How can we not?
In our anguish we cry out: Oh, that you would tear the Heavens and come down! (Isaiah 64)
With the disciples we want to beg the Lord “to tell fire to come down from heaven and con-sume those who reject the ways of peace” (Luke 9:54)
But this is not the way of peace. That only adds more violence to an already violent world.
The only way is to model our lives on you Lord, to stop the violence creeping into our own hearts, to put an end to the small hurtful ways that we cause pain to others, to make a commitment to refuse to add to the suffering that already exists in our world. This we can do.
We take inspiration from Etty Hillesum who died in Auschwitz in 1943: “There doesn’t seem to be much you Lord, can do about our lives. Neither can I hold you responsible. You cannot help us but we can help you to defend your dwelling place inside us to the last”.
(An interrupted life. 1996. p.178)
Sr. Gemma Corbett