The Tears of Jesus

In Jerusalem, there is a small church on the Mount of Olives called "Dominus Flevit": The Tears of the Lord. From the site of the church, one has a beautiful view of the city the Jerusalem laid out down below. The Gospel reports that from this site, Jesus looked down on the city and wept: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!  (Matt. 23).

Just 40 years later, Jerusalem would be wiped off the map for centuries by the invasion of Rome; the temple would be destroyed even until now, and the Jews would be scattered over the face of the earth.  When I visited the site of Dominus Flevit, I began to weep myself, knowing the fate of the beautiful city I saw below.  But looking back on that moment, I now think that the reason for my tears was that the Spirit of Jesus lives within me, making me love what He loves and grieve over the things that grieved Him on earth.

Matthew 12:30 gives us another saying of Jesus:  Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.  In the past few years, I have felt within me the urge to "gather" those I love "as a hen gathers her brood under her wings."  When I sit down to pray in the morning, or sometimes at Mass, I feel myself "gathering" together those I love under my wings.  This inclination is vastly different from that initial inclination when I first experienced the power of the Holy Spirit in my life.

At one of the prayer meetings in those earlier days, I "saw" in my spirit a ladder leading from earth into heaven, and at that time, I wanted to begin climbing the ladder, leaving everything on earth behind.  At my first steps, however, the Lord stopped me with His will:  I want you to go to the back of the church (symbolically), where are those who feel unworthy to come to Me; I want you to put your arms around them and walk with them until they also want to come to Me as you do.  The vision lasted only a second, but I understood that my task was not "to get to heaven," but to bring with me so many others.

Today, some 40+ years later, my heart and  arms metaphorically go around a multitude of other people.  I know that on my journey to the next life, I am "attached" to so many people.  I can't run up that ladder alone; I bring with me so many other people who have become part of me.  At the last supper, Jesus said to His disciples, I go to prepare a place for you...and I will take you to myself; that where I am, there you also may be.  And where I go you know, and the way also you know (John 14).

The whole Catholic doctrine of the communion of saints rests on this principle:  that, like Jesus, we enter eternal life (even in this life) not alone, but with others whom we have come to love.  God is the Great Gathering Force.  "Where there is division, there is sin," according to St. Athanasius.  Jesus returned to heaven with a 'great cloud of witnesses" (Heb, 12), taking with Him "a crowd of captives and gave gifts to his people" (Eph. 4). 

Today when I pray, I stand with so many people that I cannot leave alone, and everyday the circle widens and grows, the result of the Spirit of God dwelling in me (Romans 5:  The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.)  I used to wonder whether that meant that now "we love God" or that it meant that "God's love for us" has been poured out.  Today I know it means both:  The Spirit enables us to both love God and to love others whom He loves.  

So here's my promise and guarantee:  if I know you, I love you, and you will be with me where I am in the next life!  Not by any grace or gift of my own, but by the grace and gift of Jesus Christ, who first wept over Jerusalem and over all of us!