After I was ordained, my first assignment was to St. Patrick’s Parish in Vancouver. I wasn’t there a week before I heard stories about a former pastor, Msgr. Louis Forget—even though he’d retired more than 25 years before I arrived.
One of the stories told how he would regularly cry in the pulpit. Imagine, I thought: a Monsignor crying during his homily!
We all know where that story goes…
There’s weeping in both our first reading and psalm, which got me thinking about the place of tears on the Christian journey. Tears were already on my mind, because last week I watched a short ESPN documentary that showed Canucks defenseman Travis Hamonic crying on camera.
The documentary, filmed five years ago when Hamonic was playing for the New York Islanders, tells of his father’s sudden death when the hockey player was only ten years old. It was clear that the loss was the defining moment in his life.
As an adult Catholic, Hamonic has written “My faith means everything to me, and God comes first in all aspects of my life.”
He said “I believe that my Dad is in Heaven right now. And thanks to my faith in Jesus, and Him dying on the cross for my sins, I’ll get to join my Dad someday.”
Yet this man of faith still sheds tears. Didn’t God promise to wipe away our tears?
How do we make sense of the sorrow and sadness that even the holiest of Christians must face? The only answer is a one-word answer: Jesus.
Jesus doesn’t stop our tears; he cries with us.
The closeness of Jesus is something we can rely on, because Jesus understands everything about us.
All this we learn from the second reading today. The Letter to the Hebrews states clearly that Jesus is the Son of God, interceding for us before the throne of the Father. That alone should inspire confidence.
But at the same time, it tells us he is fully human—one of us, who has been tempted like us, though without sin.
While the Gospels are the best place to look for a portrait of Jesus, Hebrews gives us some beautiful insights by comparing him to other high priests, who must be gentle with others because they know their own weakness.
Jesus does not share the weakness of other high priests, but as a man chosen among men, he understands our weakness—and responds gently to it.
Early in Travis Hamonic’s NHL career, he started to invite a child who had lost a parent to attend every home game—and to meet with him afterward. Because he had shared their experience, he understood it, and was able to connect, sometimes very powerfully.
And before each meeting, he prayed that God would help him to inspire the child.
The Letter to the Hebrews says that because Jesus understands us perfectly, we can be confident in approaching him for all the help we need in every circumstance. Someone who gets our suffering wants to dry our tears.
What a positive message for weary, wounded, and wondering folks!
Today is World Mission Sunday. It’s a day we might well ask ourselves how we understand that mission. Is it to build churches, and hospitals, and schools in foreign lands?
Well, yes. But more important, the Church’s mission is to dry tears, to help those in sorrow find a lasting peace amidst the unavoidable pains and losses of life on earth. Today is a day both to support that universal mission, and to personally rededicate ourselves to it.
The Church’s mission, and ours, is to share the good news of the Resurrection and eternal life, beautifully expressed in Psalm 30 “At night there are tears, but joy comes with dawn.”
A footnote: Last week it was reported that Travis Hamonic was on unpaid leave from the Canucks while he deals with "personal matters." What these are has not been disclosed, but there's speculation that it has to do with his vaccination status. Whatever he is dealing with, a prayer for Travis would be in order...
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