Compassion Speaks: O My People!

by M. Doretta Cornell, RDC

As we move into Holy Week, the final days of celebrating Jesus’ final walk among the people, the prayers of the Church often call us to look on Jesus suspended on the Cross, executed as a criminal and rejected for his teaching of God’s love for all and call to holiness.

As I look at the crucified Jesus today, I find myself seeing a sort of triple exposure, image imposed on image imposed on the Cross with its image of Jesus dying.

The first layer is the image of the historical Jesus, nailed to that cross outside of Jerusalem.  His physical suffering is palpable.  He cries out at the seeming absence of the loving Father who has been with him all through his life.  And he knows, too, the betrayal of his followers and rejection by the people to whom he spent his life proclaiming God’s compassion.

The second layer  I see is an image of all the people now suffering persecution – the burning of their churches, synagogues, mosques, and schools, the ravaging of whole villages just because their religion, skin color, way of dressing or praying, their desire to learn offends some one.  Over them all, I feel the sorrow of our Compassionate God, mourning their suffering, and mourning also their persecutors’ refusal to accept their victims as brothers and sisters.

The third image I see is the ravaged Earth, the scarred moonscape of mountains whose crests have been blasted off to suck out the last speck of coal, streams clogged with debris or, worse, chemicals and coal ash, the forests hacked down and hills so denuded that a heavy rain sends it sliding down over the nearest towns, the drought-chapped land, topsoil blown away, incapable of supporting life.

(From The Reproaches, prayers during the honoring of the Cross on Good Friday: the voice of God is speaking)
O My People, What have I done to you? How have I offended you?
Answer me.