The Mark and Curse of Cain

The man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have produced a man with the help of the LORD."

Next she bore his brother Abel. Abel became a keeper of flocks, and Cain a tiller of the soil.

In the course of time Cain brought an offering to the LORD from the fruit of the soil, while Abel, for his part, brought one of the best firstlings of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not. Cain greatly resented this and was crestfallen.

So the LORD said to Cain: "Why are you so resentful and crestfallen?

If you do well, you can hold up your head; but if not, sin is a demon lurking at the door: his urge is toward you, yet you can be his master."

Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let us go out in the field." When they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

Then the LORD asked Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" He answered, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?"

The LORD then said: "What have you done! Listen: your brother's blood cries out to me from the soil!

Therefore you shall be banned from the soil that opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.

If you till the soil, it shall no longer give you its produce. You shall become a restless wanderer on the earth."

Cain said to the LORD: "My punishment is too great to bear. Since you have now banished me from the soil, and I must avoid your presence and become a restless wanderer on the earth, anyone may kill me at sight."

Not so!" the LORD said to him. "If anyone kills Cain, Cain shall be avenged sevenfold." So the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest anyone should kill him at sight.

- Genesis 4: 1-15

In my own view -

THE MARK is an interior mark. Our God is a just God, and infinitely wise, therefore this mark is most clearly not to be found in the external - as in the darkness of the skin. Something that have afflicted a lot of our darker brothers and sisters, I am sure, through the centuries. Afflicted so many of them for so much and for so long that it must have had a bearing and a resonance in their collective mind stream and therefore, a negative consequence on their cultural identity. What a crime it is to weaken a people entire and to diminish the promise in them only because they were born to this world in the way and in the manner that God have endowed them! Do we not all claim to one lineage and one common Creator? How can this mark be external when the outside appearance of the corporal body has nothing to do with the interior life of the soul which is in the mind and heart of a person. Sin was not lurking visibly outside of Cain, it was lurking at the door of his heart. And the Lord is always infinitely more interested in the interior state of a man, in the soul of a person - in his heart and mind, than in how a person looks.

Our Ash Wednesday commemorations yesterday clearly show how the Lord made our bodies from dust and from nothingness He summoned our souls to inhabit our corporal bodies, making us complete as human beings. Where were we O Lord, before you made us? What were we thinking of when we are not thinking of You? It is always wholesome to meditate on our humble origins - dust and nothingness - most especially here at the season of Lent. The death we shall all suffer will see our corporal bodies return back into the dust from which it was made - this is regardless of externals. Sister Death will not distinguish between skin tones, sex, age, creed, class or external beauty for her judgments are God's judgments. But the soul of every person shall continue on to inhabit the eternity which it has chosen for itself. At our death, we are said to be like a tree that has fallen and where we have fallen is where we will be - and then there is the Justice of God, for the time for repentance and mercy would have been spent. Whatever sentence is passed by the Court of Christ during our Final Accounting, whether we be saved or lost, I am sure that we will all forever regret the numberless days and countless hours we have sinned. This is because we are all sinners, one to another without exception - our natures wounded and our souls darkened by the loss of our birthright inheritance of life and of light in God - original justice - by the sin of our first parents - original sin. We all have - without exception - an inclination to evil that is magnitudes more powerful than our inclination to do good. Sin lurks at the door of the heart of every person and more often than not, we let the enemy cross the threshold of our will and bring death and confusion to our souls instead of Christ who is also at the same time knocking at that very same door because everyone needs God's grace to overcome sin.

Therefore, the mark of Cain is to be found in the soul of a man itself. It is not a mark of a set of people, a nation, a tribe or a kingdom. It is a mark on individual souls, the mark of a murderer and a fugitive to his own heart. What Cain wants - that he does not fully realize - is peace and reconciliation with God and his fellow men - he wants to rest from his restless, wandering heart.
There is repentance stirring in the heart of Cain and this the Wisdom of God has also forseen, which is why we are warned that those who judge Cain because of his mark is cursed. But those who are merciful will also receive mercy.

Lastly, the mark does not exempt Cain from Justice and the laws that bind this virtue to the service of the common good of the peace of the community but it does not exclude him from the mercy of God that is given freely to all of us sinners who do not deserve it.

The corporal work of visiting prisoners and the spiritual work of admonishing the sinner is a manifestation of this mercy.

It is not the mark of the Beast which is the mark of a reprobate heart - this mark, for me, is different.

Glory to God in the highest and peace to men of goodwill!

Always to always - in Christ through Mary