Week 12 Saturday (Year 2)

Readings: Lamentations 2.2, 10-14, 18-19; Psalm 73/74; Matthew 8.5-17

In Holy Week 2020, in the deserted churches and basilicas of Rome, the plaintive poetry of the Book of Lamentations echoed around empty pews. Never was that text more actual. The condition of the city outside, deserted, abandoned and occupied by wild animals, silently witnessing the deaths of thousands of people, was exactly as these ancient poems describe.

It is only rarely, thank God, that a whole city or country, never mind the whole world, goes into 'lockdown'. But it happens regularly, and in different ways, for individuals and families and smaller communities. On any day, somewhere in the world, there are individuals, families, other groups living through afflictions 'as huge as the sea'. Something has happened that is devastating for them, a sadness or anxiety so big,  a loss or betrayal so fundamental, that it seems beyond any possibility of healing. 'Who can possibly cure you', the poet asks.

Cry and cry out is his recommendation. Let your tears flow like a torrent day and night. There is honesty and relief in tears, let them flow. And cry out also, to God, pouring out your heart along with your tears, stretching out your hands as you pleas for God's help.

Such devastations may leave us feeling that it is beyond even God's power to help, for some reason we may believe that it is beyond God's care and concern. We can then make our own once again, as we do at every Mass, the words of the centurion who came to Jesus asking for help: 'Lord, I am not worthy to have you under my roof; just give the word and my servant will be cured'.

Just give the word and I, we, will be cured. The word of love, the word of peace, the word of forgiveness, the word of healing: it will be enough for the Creator of all things and the Lord of history to set things right. Isaiah foretold it and Jesus fulfilled it and it is as true for us today - 'he takes our sicknesses away and carries our diseases for us'. Do not be afraid to approach him, whatever the desolation in which you find yourself, and to lay all your affliction before him.