As I cried in Church He sat beside me and cried as well!

As I cried in Church He sat beside me and cried as well! 

Tears can become the result of joy or sadness.  Both indicate a crucial event that relieves our wonderment of life and soon can be shared. 

If we find that peace from happiness has entered the lives of ourself or the many around us then there will be joy expressed by all.  And when a disaster appears with its loss of understanding the following element of comfort coming from the one who lived it.  

As I sat there in Church alone and dismayed, the emptiness around me appeared real and I listened for a baby’s cry, a rustling of pages in the hymnal, or a cough or sneeze from anyone.  There was no one, not even a sound of movement from an unseen person.  

Then he was there, sitting close by and as tears began to drop his words were; “where are they?  Has not even one person taken the time to stop and say hello by a simple sign of the cross or a genuflection at the tabernacle?”  It was I who extended an arm around his shoulder to comfort my Lord as we both sat in an arena void of life as the Father looked for his Prodigal Son who this day was absent.  

We know Jesus wept twice as he viewed pain from a loss, first, at the tomb of his friend Lazarus right before he raised him from the dead.  (Jn 11: 35 - 44).  Secondly, as he entered Jerusalem and looked at the city lamenting over it:  (Lk 19: 41 - 44).  Both instances were a loss, a dear friend and the loss of those he came to save and was rejected.  Is it any wonder that the creator of life would be saddened when his current people have turned their heads to the glitter of idols that blind the face of God in their own souls.

“Where are they?” he said once again.  No more words were needed at that moment but the sense of intense emptiness could be felt like saying you could cut this moment with a knife. It was so real.   

Do we think that God doesn’t feel the constant turning away by his creatures?  The tears as he wept on entering Jerusalem right before his Passion is a clear indication that an eternal God who created us and everything we see or aren’t even aware of has the compassion to cry just like us?  

The knowledge that my Lord was exposed to the empty Church was not a surprise, but a reality that he waits for even one human being to stop and say hello.  This has become the essence of Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament and the assurance of some Catholics stopping to pray, with rosaries or prayer books.  However the contemplative manner to just sit and allow his Spirit to speak to us is without any question of a peaceful encounter with him reaches deeper.  Today I understood what eloquence it is to just sitting with Christ can mean.

Our tears continued as we saw the many who were brought up as Catholic have not only stopped coming to Church, but their children, our grand-children, are not being baptized.  

Ralph B. Hathaway