Have We Forgotten How to Weep?

“Have we forgotten how to weep?” Pope Francis asked that question in his July 2013 visit to the Italian island of Lampedusa, a major port of entry for migrants and asylum seekers from North Africa and the Mideast, to commemorate those who perished when crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa. Unfortunately, as if to emphasize the difficulty of changing human hearts, only three months later, in October 2013, two more shipwrecks near Lampedusa claimed more than 394 lives.

Jesus is often described as feeling compassion (or pity), as he does for the crowds who came to hear him preach or experience his healing and deliverance ministry (see Matthew 9:36, 14:14, 15:32; Mark 6:34, 8:2) or for the widow of Nain who had lost her son (Luke 7:13). He also speaks of the Samaritan and the father of the prodigal son as having compassion. Typically, we are told that Jesus’ having compassion is evidence of his humanity. Although this observation is true, it is also misleading and trivial.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus tells us that those who mourn are blessed (Matthew 5:4). In his interpretation of the Beatitudes, St. Gregory of Nyssa argues that, although Jesus lists eight (or nine, depending on whether persecution is counted once or twice) beatitudes, there is but a single beatitude: God himself. The beatitudes pronounced by Jesus are all attributes of God or of Christ; we are blessed when we reflect the attributes of God, thereby becoming an image of Christ in the world.

Why, then, are those who mourn blessed? Because God is intimately connected to each part of his creation, and because God mourns. God mourns when our sin separates us from Him. God mourns when we his children sin against, damage, injure, or murder one another. God mourns when animals suffer. God mourns when a species that He has created becomes extinct. God mourns when people suffer, He mourns when they are lonely and isolated, He mourns when He sees the marginalized, the abandoned, the poor, the victims of exploitation and trafficking. He mourns for those who are oppressed as well as for those who are oppressors. In short, God mourns. And because God mourns, we are called to be a people who mourn. And we mourn because we have compassion.

In today’s world, compassion, like many other words, has undergone a change in meaning. Roughly synonymous terms for compassion are pity and sympathy. But neither of those are compassion; instead, the compassion of which the Gospels speak is a sharing in suffering, a connecting with the “other” through experiencing the pain they suffer. Consider the compassion of the Samaritan. A man hated by Israelites and considered to occupy the lowest rung of human existence, he has experienced marginalization firsthand. When he sees another human being (who is almost certainly an Israelite) abandoned and left to die, he does everything possible to rescue him and bring healing to him. He does this out of compassion – an understanding of and sharing in suffering that breaks down the walls that separate him from those who would marginalize him. The Samaritan is able to mourn.

So let us return to the Holy Father’s question. Do we weep when consider our own sinfulness, or do we rest confident in our assurance of salvation? Do we weep when we witness wholesale environmental degradation? Do we weep when we see abused, neglected, and abandoned animals? Do we weep when we see those lacking food and shelter? Do we weep at senseless deaths from gun violence? Do we weep when migrants seeking a better life are demonized, imprisoned, and separated from their families? Do we weep and mourn along with God, or do we choose to respond with an arrogant avoidance or indifference that reveals the chasm that separates us from God?