SOBBING, WAILING WOMEN meet Jesus along the way as he carries his cross to Calvary. He stops to tell them not to cry for him but for themselves and for your children. This is a mysterious saying cry for your children.
In Italy there is a Christmas tale told with a dark side. A mother has lost her baby in the slaughter of the Holy Innocents, ordered by Herod who was jealous of the newborn boy being called a king. But Joseph, warned of the danger by a dream-angel, took Mary and the Infant Jesus to the safety of Egypt.
But this other mother, overwhelmed with grief, packed her child's belongings in a bag and searched among all the remaining children for her own. The long travel and worry caused her to grow ugly, worn out and beggarly.
Finally she found the Child Jesus, placing the bag of clothes at his feet, embittered that her baby had been killed while Jesus escaped. But Jesus blessed her and gave her the new name La Befana, which means The Bestower. Though her sadness remained, Befana, outwardly ugly but inwardly beautiful, left Jesus and spent the rest of her days giving gifts to children.
And let us cry too for the dead children - the children who died at Bethlehem, who die in abortions, and the children who died (and die still) at Wounded Knee, Hiroshima, Dresden, My Lai, Gaza, Beirut, Birmingham, Baghdad, Calcutta, Chicago...
Silence
Our Father Who Art in Heaven...
Hail Mary full of grace...
Glory be to the Father...
