Passion Sunday

“Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me;
weep instead for yourselves and for your children."
Luke 23:1-49

Once I was called to give anointing of the sick. I was led to a large room with many people. In the middle was a rocking chair. There was an old man there whose eyes were closed but who continued to turn left and right. He was suffering from cancer and he was dying. That is physical suffering.

A man was so fed up with his 18-yr. old son that he told him to leave the house (lumayas). And he did. When the father was calm and discovered that his son had left home, he regretted what he said. He was worried about his son and looked among his friends. That is mental suffering.

At one point in his life, St. Francis de Sales, our patron Saint, could not shake off the fear that he was going to hell. That is spiritual suffering.

Once in my theology class among engineering students, a student raised his hand and asked: “If there is a God, why is there suffering in the world?” It is as if God is the cause of suffering. If we open the book of Genesis, we discover that suffering only entered the world when man sinned.

And if we ask, “What is God doing about it?” we are asking the wrong question. The question we should ask is, “What are we doing about it?” For many of our sufferings come from us or our fellowmen. That old man was suffering from lung cancer because he smoked. If you don’t want to get cancer, don’t smoke. The town of Ormoc was buried in mud because of illegal logging. If we don’t want disasters of that kind to happen, we have to stop illegal logging. We have to act not God.

If we open the book of Job in the Old Testament, we are faced with another question: “Why do good people suffer?” The book had no answer. It just said: “We don’t know why good people suffer. We just have to keep trusting in God.” God will not lead you where his grace can not keep you. St. Paul who was suffering from an painful illness was told by God: “My grace is enough for you.” We just have to keep on trusting in God.

Can anything good come out of suffering? Christopher Reeve suffered from a bad fall and he became a paraplegic. He championed the cause for more funding to find a cure for spinal injury.

Tony Meloto came from a poor family. A scholarship from Ateneo enabled him to finish schooling and get a good job and became rich. Now he has resigned from his job and went full-time to Gawad Kalinga. Gawad Kalinga seeks to build 700,000 homes in 70 communities in 7 years. His experience of poverty made him now give himself to alleviating the poverty of others.

Jesus suffered and died on the cross. And what good did it do? It opened the gates of heaven for us again.

When Jesus met the women of Jerusalem who were weeping for him, he told them: “Daughters of Jerusalem do not weep for me; weep instead for yourselves and for your children.” In other words, Jesus is telling us not to be sorry for him. Instead we should be sorry for our sins. For if we remain in our sins, his suffering and death would not do us any good. Masasayang lang ang kanyang kamatayan para sa atin.