I often cry when I pray the Sorrowful Mysteries or the Stations of the Cross. The magnitude of God's love is incomprehensible. Jesus loves us so much that he takes on the sins of the world for all time. He loves us so much that that he dies for us. He is the ultimate sacrifice. It makes me want to be good, so that I'm not the one who is driving the thorn deeper into his head. But every time I come to the 8th Station:
Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep instead for yourselves and for your children, for indeed, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.’ ~ Luke 23:28
I am startled to realize how accurately it portrays our modern times. Many people consider children a burden, not only to parents and society, but also earth. I was one of those women who wanted to have it all and did, but only now realize how much I slipped down the slippery slope of calling that which is bad good, and vice versa. We're crawling up and out, but not without knowing that some things are irreversible.
Msgr. Charles Pope writes eloquently on this passage here.
Thoughts?
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6 comments:
That's some heavy stuff. Perhaps he was talking about plastic oceans and the time that will come when we have poisoned the earth so badly we will not be able to feed ourselves and our children.
Thanks for weighing in, Bish. It could be true. We need to take care of our earth, but not at the cost of humanity.
To me, separation of sex from marriage and commitment is what causes an epidemic of unwanted, throwaway children.
There are times I look at the world around me and wonder if might have been better never to bring children into it. And there are many times I think that people like Jesus were wasted on humanity -- and (thankfully) just as many times I think they were not.
Mary, this was the predominant sentiment (never to bring children into the world) in Europe when we lived there ten years ago. Is it still all doom and gloom there? I couldn't get over it and as soon as we returned to the US, I was with child. I am perennially optimistic ...
Hmm, I'm not sure I've thought of the passage this way before. I've usually thought it meant, "Times are going to get so bad that mothers will say 'blessed are you who have no children you have to grieve over.'" When danger threatens, my thoughts go to my children, adults though they may be. Women without kids are spared the horrible pain of watching their kids' pain.
It's definitely another interpretation, Marcia, one that makes sense. But I am so optimistic about humans, that I cannot believe that there will come a time that is so bad that we'll have no hope and will quit having children.
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