Surely kindness wins over 'theology' every time

In this coming Sunday's Gospel we see how Jesus at Naim had pity on the widow who had lost her son.

Reading the Gospel it might well be easy to head off into some sort of esoteric theology about life and death. Talk about the power of Jesus. Well and good.

But might the real wonder of the Gospel be how Jesus was so kind to the dead man's mother.

Being kind to one another, especially to people who are grieving and fragile can never be underestimated.

I recently attended a funeral Mass where the behaviour of the priest was simply appalling. Once the prayers had been said at the grave he ran away to his car. His sermon was a paraphrase of the introduction to the liturgyof a funeral Mass. The man wore running shoes at the funeral Mass.

He used the word God many times, the word resurrection too. But kindess, any sort of emapthy, sympathy? That ordinary, normal behaviour seemed so absent.