The writer of this article on the website Catholic News Now and Here has studied liberation theology and engaged Buddhism and is exploring social spirituality. He serves as a research professor at the Institute for Theology at a Korean university while participating in a Christian network advocating for a world free from discrimination and hatred.
As spring arrives ahead of Holy Week (Passion Week), Good Friday, the world is groaning in the flames of war. For some, every week is “Holy Week”—no, every single day is a “cross,” and they are suffering. A recent paper published in the international medical journal *The Lancet Global Health*, titled “Violent and Nonviolent Deaths in the Gaza Conflict,” estimates that between October 7, 2023, and January 5, 2025, approximately 75,200 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip died from direct war violence, including about 22,800 children and adolescents under the age of 18. Based on field investigations in Gaza, this figure is actually 34.7 percent higher than the official statistics of the Gaza Health Ministry, directly contradicting long-standing claims by Israel and the United States that the ministry’s statistics are false.
The exact number of casualties from Israel and the United States’ attacks on Iran remains unclear. However, the Iranian human rights organization HRANA announced that from February 28 to March 23, at least 1,443 civilians were killed, including at least 217 children. These figures likely include around 100 elementary school children from Shahzareh Tayebeh Elementary School in Minab who were killed on the first day of the war by a U.S. Tomahawk missile strike.
What matters is not abstract “numbers,” but concrete “people.” In response to accusations from perpetrators that the death toll has been exaggerated, the Gaza Health Ministry has published on its website the names and personal information of the deceased in both Arabic and English. This is a way for the victims to assert their existence and for others to mourn their absence. Reading through the names of children and adolescents on that website, one imagines their youthful faces. For children born into war, living in war, and dying in war, “life itself was war.” Many of them likely perished without ever knowing what life outside of war was, or why they had to die.
Witnessing such horrific war and ecological devastation fills us with overwhelming fear. One common human response to such fear is “paralysis.” When the pain is so great that it feels impossible to escape, people choose “numbness.” This applies not only to their own suffering but also to the suffering of others. Fearing that feeling others’ pain might endanger their own lives, people shut the doors of their senses. This is what Dorothee Sölle criticized as “apathy toward suffering.” We may feel a moment of compassion when we see news of others’ pain, but fearing the burden of that pain, we quickly retreat into our daily lives. We treat others’ suffering as unrelated to us, excusing ourselves by saying there is nothing we can do.
For Christians, Holy Week is a time to meditate on the suffering and love of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ suffering was the result of love, and his love began with a non-dual sensitivity to the suffering of others. One day, as Jesus and his disciples approached the town of Nain, they encountered a funeral procession for a young man—the only son of a widow. Seeing the woman who had lost both her husband and her only son, Jesus felt “compassion,” approached her, and said, “Do not weep,” comforting her before bringing the young man back to life.
The expression translated as “compassion” in this story does not fully convey what Jesus felt in that moment. Different Bible translations render it as “pity,” “have mercy,” or “feel sorry,” but none fully captures his heart as he faced the grieving widow. The Greek word used in the Gospels, *splagchnizomai* (σπλαγχνίζομαι), goes beyond simple sympathy or compassion—it refers to a pain so intense it feels as though one’s intestines are being torn apart. It is a heart that feels others’ suffering so deeply that it is accompanied by physical pain—a heart that grieves and aches together with them. That is the heart of Jesus.
Reflecting on Jesus’ heart, one recalls the meaning of “tears” taught and embodied by Pope Francis during his lifetime. On April 16, 2016, when the Mediterranean Sea was called “the world’s largest mass grave” due to the deaths of refugees, the Pope visited a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, comforting and caring for refugees. He then returned to the Vatican with three Muslim refugee families, a total of 12 people. On the plane, the Pope showed reporters a drawing by an Afghan refugee boy. It depicted a sun weeping as it looked down on a sinking boat and refugees struggling in the water. Holding the drawing, the Pope said, “If the sun can cry, we can cry too.” People called this empathetic teaching the “theology of tears.”
Sölle described “apathy toward others’ suffering” as “the inability to love.” This means that sensing others’ pain and sorrow is both the premise and the purpose of love.
The world is filled with crosses. To grieve and suffer together with all beings nailed to these social and ecological crosses, with a heart that feels as if it is being torn apart—and to seek and act upon whatever we can do so that there will be no more unjust deaths—that is the heart of Jesus we must learn during Holy Week and especially today, Good Friday.
