HAVING agonised over the picture of Scott Rush’s parents on the front page of the Catholic Leader (CL 11/11/2007) the words of Pope Benedict XVI literally jumped off the page at me.
In his recent book “Jesus of Nazareth” he quoted the second beatitude: “… Blessed are those who mourn …”.
There are two kinds of mourning, declared His Holiness.
Judas hanging himself in despair is an example of a mourning that has lost hope, mistrusts love and truth and destroys from within.
Peter’s tears of remorse that ploughed up the soil of his heart in repentance is an example of the second type of mourning that is occasioned by the shattering encounter with truth, which leads to conversion, to resist evil, to begin anew.
Is capital punishment merely society’s form of the despairing mourning of Judas? Judas acted as criminal and executioner in one consistent act of inconsistent trust in the love of God.
When a society chooses capital punishment for the criminal it acts as Judas acted.
Judas could see no forgiveness for his sin. Capital punishment is society’s act of hopelessness, its final despairing display of its own mistrust of truth and love.
I know little of the Muslim faith but what little I know leads me to hope that it too shares trust in the love of a God who can heal all sin and division.
The hymn, Great Man of God, is about Marcellin Champagnat.
It was sung by Scott Rush and his classmates at their graduation Mass.
It included: “… Love one another, take care of the least …”.
No doubt his own mother was at that graduation Mass and she would have heard “… To Crib and Cross he ever had recourse, Praise be to Jesus, and to His Mother.”
Let us join with all mothers who have stood beside the crib of their infant.
Let us pray that we as a global society under God can enliven hope for every Mother’s child.
We trust, we dare to hope for life.
VINCE HODGE
Paddington, Qld
