Jesus weeps over war, says Pope Francis

Pope’s Morning Mass: Jesus Weeps Today Too, Because We’ve Chosen the Way of War

At Casa Santa Marta, Says There Can Be No Justification for This Piecemeal War

    

Rome, November 19, 2015 (ZENIT.org) Staff Reporter              

 

Just as Jesus wept over Jerusalem, today too he is weeping over the world, because we have chosen the way of war, and have not understood peace.
This was the message Pope Francis gave this morning during his Mass at Casa Santa Marta, reported Vatican Radio.
Drawing from the Gospel reading, which recounts how Jesus wept at seeing Jerusalem, the Pope said: “Today Jesus weeps as well: because we have chosen the way of war, the way of hatred, the way of enmities.”
“We are close to Christmas: There will be lights, there will be parties, bright trees, even Nativity scenes – all decked out – while the world continues to wage war,” the Holy Father reflected. “The world has not understood the way of peace.”
Pope Francis went on to recall the recent commemorations of the Second World War and the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as his visit to Redipuglia last year on the anniversary of the Great War.
These conflicts were “useless slaughters,” the Pontiff said, repeating the words of Pope Benedict XV. “Everywhere there is war today, there is hatred.”
“What shall remain in the wake of this war, in the midst of which we are living now?” Francis asked. “What shall remain? Ruins, thousands of children without education, so many innocent victims: and lots of money in the pockets of arms dealers.”
The Holy Father reiterated something he has said on other occasions: that war is waged to bring economic gain to a few.
“Jesus once said: ‘You can not serve two masters:  either God or riches.’ War is the right choice for him who would serve wealth: 'Let us build weapons, so that the economy will right itself somewhat, and let us go forward in pursuit of our interests.’”
But those who choose money over human life face Jesus’ judgement, Francis warned. “There is an ugly word the Lord spoke: ‘Cursed!’ Because He said: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers!.’ The men who work war, who make war, are cursed, they are criminals.”
Just war?
The Pope also remarked: “A war can be justified – so to speak – with many, many reasons, but when all the world is as it is today, at war – piecemeal though that war may be – a little here, a little there, and everywhere – there is no justification – and God weeps. Jesus weeps.”
The Holy Father went on to say that, while the arms dealers go about their business, there are poor peacemakers who, in order to help others, spend themselves utterly, and even give their lives – as did Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
The cynical or worldly might ask, “But what did she ever accomplish? She wasted her life helping others on their way to death?” the Pope said, adding, “We do not understand the way of peace.”
“It will do us well to ask the for the grace of tears, for this world that does not recognize the path of peace, this world that lives for war, and cynically says not to make it. Let us pray for conversion of heart. Here before the door of this Jubilee of Mercy, let us ask that our joy, our jubilation, be this grace: that the world discover the ability to weep for its crimes, for what the world does with war.”
[For a summary of some of the many occasions when Pope Francis has spoken of the world at war, and referred to it as a World War III, see here: http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/pope-francis-a-pope-who-sees-a-wwiii-and-pleas-for-it-to-stop]