why am I weeping?

Homily

Friday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time C2

Broomtree Retreat Center, South Dakota

22 July 2022

Why am I weeping?

It's not right to say there's no crying in Christianity.  Jesus wept.  He wept for the same reason as Mary Magdalen, over a tomb, over the loss of a loved one.

Yet when I do lose someone truly?  It's when I lose hope in the resurrection. It's when I conclude a story is over, when I conclude a person, even sometimes myself, will forever live in the grave I assigned to them.  The people I give up on are the only ones that are truly lost.

Yet Lazarus and Jesus are risen!  It is the mark of love to feel and mourn a loss.  Yet that weeping is not a conclusion, it's the seedbed of new life, if only I stop holding on to the boxes I put people in.

Including myself.