In 1933 Bishop Fulton J. Sheen published a little book on the seven words of Jesus from the cross. Sheen begins his Good Friday sermon with a story about Adam.

When Adam had been driven from the Garden of Paradise, and the penalty of labor imposed upon him, he went out in quest of the bread he was to earn by the sweat of his brow. In the course of that search, he stumbled upon the limp form of his son, Abel, picked him up, carried him upon his shoulders, and laid him on the lap of Eve. They spoke to him, but Abel did not answer. He had never been so silent before. They lifted his hand, but it fell back limp; it had never acted that way before. They looked into his eyes, cold, glassy, mysteriously elusive; they had never been so unresponsive before. They wondered, and as they wondered, the…