suffering

THE
WINTER
VOL.
1967
7 • NO.
SUFFERING
1
NOTES
ON CONTRIBUTORS
FR. JOHN L. MCKENZIE, s.J., author of The Two-Edged Sword, Myths and
Realities, and The Power and the Wisdom, is professor of biblical history at
Loyola University, Chicago, and president of the Catholic Biblical Association of America.
FRo THOMAS HAND, S.J., a native of California, has spent most of his
thirteen years in J a p a n teaching in the jesuit college in Hiroshima. H e is
now engaged in the work of retreats and spiritual direction at K a m a k u r a .
FR. JOSEPH WHELAN, S.J., has recently taken his licentiate in theology at
Woodstock College, Maryland. H e is engaged in a year's ascetical a n d
pastoral studies before beginning his doctorate in spirituality.
FR. JOSEPH BLENKINSOPP, studied at the Pontifical Biblical Institute,
Rome. He has taught scripture for some years in England and Central
America and is a m e m b e r of the theological faculty at Notre D a m e University,
U.S.A. He is the author of several books on theology and scripture and has
contributed to the english version of the Jerusalem Bible.
FR. LADISLAUS BOROS, s.J., a doctor of philosophy of the University of
Munich, is one of the editors of the swiss jesuit periodical Orientierung. His
Pain and Providence has recently been published in England.
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TIIE
WAY
A
REVIEW
QUARTERLY
OF
CHRISTIAN
WINTER
SPIRITUALITY
I967
SUFFERING
Page
INTRODUCTION
THE
SON
IF ANY
OF MAN
MAN
SALVATION
WE
MUST
WILL
COME
THROUGH
REJOICE
SUFFERING
IN
AND
QUESTION
SUFFER
OUR
AFTER
SUFFERING
SUFFERING
ME
3
6
John L. Mckenzie
Thomas Hand
i8
Joseph Whelan
~8
Joseph Blenkinsopp
36
Ladislaus Boros
45
DEATH:
AND
ANSWER
LECTIO
DIVINA
The Word of God and Prayer
57
Text: Uthredof Boldon
71
Recommended Reading
8o
EDITED BY JAMES WALSH~ s . J . a n d W I L L I A M YEOMANS~ soJ.
THE WAY is published from 3I Farm Street, London, W I
O JAMES WALSI-I, W I N T E R
i967
INTRODUCTION
jeers George B e r n a r d
Shaw's cockney, the radical working m a n of the edwardian era, fabian hero and literary father of today's more
sophisticated agnostic humanist. He is b a i t i n g Major
Barbara of the Salvation Army, who finally throws off her illusions
about religion when she sees that big business is far better equipped
to relieve h u m a n misery, disease and poverty than her own amateur
efforts in the name of Christ. Shaw is not suggesting that motives
are irrelevant; he has no more time for the enlightened self-interest
of the capitalist of his day than the rest of us. He is merely making
the point that christianity is a myth because ultimately it is the
reverse of salutary. Not only is it incapable of offering solutions to
the basically h u m a n problems; it is not even genuinely devoted to
solving them. Its real concern is not with social evil, misery, injusfige:
it grapples with them only to win converts. We have no need to
labour the point that there is truth and justice in this criticism.
Vatican II has met it fairly and has acknowledged that overemphasis on the need of a spiritual purification of the individual
for the next life has frequently obscured the fact that Christ came
to save all now, and that this salvation is bound up with healing the
world's wounds here and now. This is perhaps the main theme of
the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes. All mankind is God's
people actually or potentially, and to be a christian is to share
Christ's mission in transforming the present world: 'behold, I come
to make all things new'.
At the same time the shavian criticism does no more than scratch
at the surface of the unknown. It could be asserted that his fabian
paradise o n earth has at least taken shape in the british welfare
state; yet in the very moment that this was being structured the
first atomic bombs were being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; and the writings of the young Karl Marx, aflame with moral
indignation against the so-called christian man's inhumanity to man,
have been used to justify the cruelties and bloodshed of the soviet
police state of JosefStalin and the red guards of chinese communism.
Every positive expression of agnosticism or atheism would seem to
take its rise from the contradictions involved in the confrontation
W
HAT PRIC'~. SALVATION N O W ?
4
INTRODUCTION
of God with h u m a n suffering, and the lasting evil that men do who
profess to be christian.
Reflecting on the same problem in the light of Vatican II we can
hope to profit not only by the insights but also by the mistakes and
exaggerations of our theological past. It has been said that spiritually we are semites; it is God's revelation and call in the scriptures
and finally in his Son 1 that makes us so. I f we take up an historical
stance at the focal point where Christ became man, and look
forward or backwards, there is a profound factual likeness between
the chosen people before and after. In theory, since we are the
new people, we ought to know better than the hebrews, and therefore we ought to do better. The scholars tell us that the hebrew, in
the beginning and for centuries, had no more definite idea of
immortal blessings than his pagan neighbour, and he took it for
granted that the innocent and the just would prosper in this present
life, since God's choice and reward would manifest itself in terms
of a happiness that was material and visible. This view is still
instinctive in much christian thinking, in spite of the theological
efforts made both in the past and particularly now to root out such
stubborn remnants of pelagianism. But the new theology itself in its
efforts to redress the balance may be in danger of ignoring the
lessons of earlier salvation history. I f it were possible to record the
centuries of christendom, say from the Edict of Milan to the end
of the thirteenth century, in the same way that the bible does in
terms of salvation history, we should doubtless find a numerical
proportion between the Anawim, the remnant who listened to the
voices of the post-exilic prophets without hardening their hearts,
and the genuine christian. But we would also discover that the
touch stone of authenticity for all those who declare that it is their
intention to follow faithfully 'the rock that is Christ' ~is still suffering.
The reawakening to the truth of h u m a n solidarity in Christ could
lead to a forgetting that salvation comes through suffering. It is the
experience of most christians that the problems gnawing at the
author of the book of Job are as much ours as his. We too instinctively attribute the evils t h a t befall us to the divine justice or retribution in some shape or form, and we would be foolish to deny the
possibility that there is divine justice or retribution. But, as Job
insists, there will always come a time when such answers fail to
satisfy, when even the awareness of a Paul or a Teilhard de Chardin
1 Heb I, I.
2 I Cor Io~4.
INTRODUCTION
5
cannot communicate itself to the sufferer: humanly speaking, he is
completely alone - helpless in the full sense of this over-worked
ephithet. The only answer, as Job realized, is no answer at all.
The question, and therefore the answers, however adequate they
may appear in theory to the non-sufferer, the Job's comforter, cease
to have any point when eventually it dawns upon a man that it is in
and through his suffering that he meets his God. Here ultimately is
authentic christian conversion, authentic christian vocation: the
rest is little more than the silence of awe before the great God - and
yet the homeliness of this loving meeting.
But even so, the cross will always remain a scandal, it will always
defy h u m a n logic. How could God come on earth and not eliminate
suffering? How can we reconcile a victorious head and a suffering
body? We wrestle in vain with this problem on an intellectual level
as men have done for centuries and finally we find ourselves before
our crucified God, and begin to understand the point of our faith.
Faith is believing what we do not see. It is believing that death is
the birth-pangs of a new transformed life; believing that God's
loving plan to draw all men to him in Christ is being worked out
even through suffering. Such faith does not make light of suffering
for it can only be born of suffering. Nor is it a faith which relapses
into resignaUon and whimpers in secret. It is a faith which accepts
to live with a world in agony and still grow in hope and love. It is
the faith which made a Paul glory in the cross and an early Church
rejoice that it had suffered for Christ.
There is today a healthy desire to appreciate human values, but
even as we do this we should be aware of the danger that lies
therein, the danger which only manifests itself when we come up
against the one thing which has no h u m a n value - suffering - and
find that we are impotent against it. It is then that the temptation
comes to eliminate the one who is suffering in t h e attempt to
eliminate suffering itself. Perhaps it would be better if we christians,
as followers of the One who suffered, spoke less of the abstraction
suffering and more of sufferers. For ukimately being a christian
means being able by the gift of Christ to meet God in the school
of suffering, where Christ himself was made perfect, 1 and to
recognize the love of God in the minds and bodies that are distorted
on the cross of the great sufferer.
James Walsh, S.J.
t
H e b 2, Io; 5, 8 - I o .
T H E S O N OF
MAN MUST SUFFER
By J O H N
L. M c K E N Z I E
HE TITLE 'Son of Man' is used in the gospels of Jesus
by himself, not by others. Outside of the gospels the title
occurs once in Acts and twice in the Apocalypse. The title
is obscure in english, and it was obscure in greek; this seems
to be the reason why it was not employed outside the palestinian
church, if the New Testament usage is a n y key to its frequency.
No other title of Jesus has been submitted to such a searching
examination, and it is not to our purpose here to relate the divergent
conclusions which have been reached. For our purpose it is sufficient
to notice that in the New Testament this title was Jesus's favourite
designation of himself, and that it was original with him. When we
attempt to trace earlier uses of the title, we run into difficulties.
'Son of Man' renders literally a hebrew and aramaic phrase which
signifies an individual member of the human species; the hebrew
and aramaic words translated by 'man' are collective nouns, like the
english 'cattle', and something must be added to designate the
individual. The added word is 'son' for a male and 'daughter' for a
female. As a pure matter of semantics, the phrase could be rendered
'the man' or 'this man', and could be, when one uses it of oneself,
a polite circumlocution for the personal pronoun. Yet no interpreter
of the gospels thinks this is all the phrase means. It has overtones
which are difficult to analyze.
The uses of the title in the gospels fall into three classes, The first
class includes those passages which allude to the second coming of
the Son of Man. This use does not concern us here, interesting as it is.
The second class is used with reference to what we may call the
human condition of Jesus; here the title is linked with some feature
of his humanity, either his community with mankind in such things
as eating and drinking, or the incarnational character of his mission
exhibited in such activities as speech or miracles. The third class
includes passages in which the title is associated with the passion
and death of Jesus. This third class is really a specific group within
the second class, for nowhere is the humanity of Jesus more manifest
than in his passion and death.
T
THE
SON OF MAN MUST SUFFER
7
Doubts about the genuine humanity of Jesus were one of the
oldest heresies, probably as old as the New Testament writings. The
Church dealt much more solemnly and much more frequently with
doubts about his divinity; but the doubts about his humanity have
been more subtle and more persistent. The name given to this ancient heresy is docetism; the name is derived from a greek word,
a n d defines the heresy as the doctrine that Jesus only seemed to be
human. In the extreme forms of the heresy, the incarnation was a
vast optical illusion or a vast pantomime. In the more subtle forms
of the heresy, christians whose belief is otherwise orthodox hesitate to
attribute to Jesus those aspects of the human condition which are in
more refined societies thought gross or unseemly. Jesus, it is felt,
could not have engaged himself in the human condition to a depth
which a cultivated, lady or gentleman would find beneath their
dignity. But Jesus himself preferred a title which emphasized his
common humanity; as for his dignity, he put himself in the position
of lackey and was charged with preferring low company, a charge
which he cheerfully accepted. 1
A phrase occurs in Jesus's predictions of his passion: 'The Son of
M a n must suffer'. ~ It is intriguing that ff this sentence is lifted from
its context, the aramaic phrase permits the translation ' M a n must
suffer'. In submission to suffering, Jesus did nothing which distin,
guishes his own condition from the general h u m a n condition; for
suffering belongs to the general human condition. O u r task here is
not to discuss why this is so; we are satisfied with the fact. Two of the
great systems of ancient greek philosophy, stoicism and epicureanism, built their morality around man's response to pleasure and
pain, and many thinkers since have dealt with the problem - as a
rule, not too successfully. No one can expect to live without at some
time experiencing sharp physical and m e n t a l . , p ~ n . , W h e n this
happens, one is aware of the loneliness of pain. No matter how
much compassion and kindly ministration o n e receives, there is a
block to communication. Others cannot share the pain, even ff they
have suffered similar pain themselves. The voices of one's friends
seem to come from a great distance, too great for one to hear or
answer them clearly. One feels low, even de-humanized; one is
ashamed of one's weakness and self-pity. It is at this point, of course,
that one doubts that Jesus ever suffered as we do. H e must have had
some hidden resource which made his suffering less degrading. It
1 lk,~t9,1o_i3;Mko, i3_i7;Lk5,27_32"
~ Mk8,3i;Lk9,22.
8
THE
SON O F M A N M U S T S U F F E R
may take a little thought to see that ideas of this kind are disrespectful to him; in a way they challenge his honesty.
When we think of the suffering of Jesus, we think first of his passion; and possibly we think of nothing else. We think of the passion,
perhaps, as an exquisite and prolonged agony of physical and mental
pain, beyond anything endured by ordinary man. In fact, the
passion of Jesus, like so much of his life, was commonplace in the
world in which he lived. The hellenistic-roman world was civilized,
but it was harsh in war and in the administration of law. It did not
notably exceed in harshness the later european world until quite
recent times; and indeed one may ask whether the modern european
world has entirely risen above barbarism in these areas. O u r own
generation is no stranger to the cruelty of man to man. The death
inflicted upon Jesus was a routine punishment for certain types of
crime. Appalling as it seems to us, and its cruelty was recognized in
ancient times also, it was not an unusual punishment.
Nor is there any reason to think that Jesus was unusually delicate
and sensitive to pain. As he is described in the gospels, there is ample
reason to think that he was not. The average man of those times
seems t o have been less well nourished and less well developed in
physique than modern civilized man; but the peasant had a sturdy
body which was accustomed to prolonged physical exertion and
lack of adequate food. There was no comfort in his life, and some
things he could endure better than we can. The weak did not survive
infancy; those who did survive were those who could resist disease
and infection and who did not tire quickly. We should not take
anything away from the pains of the passion of Jesus, but he could
stand them better than most of us could stand them. Violent death
at the hands of one's fellow-men was a more common risk in that
world than it has yet become in ours; and I suspect that the mental
attitude of the ancient man towards this hazard was not much
different from our own quite casual acceptance of the risks of the
motor car.
A difficulty in studying the response of Jesus to pain is that the
gospels are extremely objective narratives. They never get into the
minds of the people who appear in them, neither into the mind of
Jesus nor of any one else. They relate the external signs of thought
and emotion. If the ancient near east was anything like the modern
near east, emotions were disclosed with a candour which the modern
european finds embarrassing. The passion narratives tell us nothing
of the response of Jesus to the passion. We have only the account of
THE
SON O F M A N M U S T S U F F E R
9
Gethsemane, which tells us that the anticipation of the passion was
so entirely h u m a n that, as I have remarked, the modern european
finds it embarrassing. I have read numerous homiletic expositions
of Gethsemane which attempted to plumb some mystical depths
of Jesus which caused him such exquisite anguish that it burst forth
in his behaviour. That Jesus should have quailed at the anticipation of p a i n is something these writers cannot bring themselves
to say. It would be too human; but it is not sinful. No doubt there
were mystical depths in this experience which the gospels do not
relate, and which it might be impudent to attempt to analyze; but
the behaviour of Jesus in this crisis needs no such explanation. What
might need explanation is the composure which the gospels describe
in him after the agony of Gethsemane. Here is seen a man who is well
aware of the pain involved in his decision, but who has refused to
allow the pain to divert him from his course, or even to force him to
show any weakness. In some w a y we manage to make this composure
the result of something else than a tremendous effort of will. When
we think of Jesus as being above emotional pressure, we also think of
him as being above character.
The mental pain of the passion can only be deduced from the
narrative; we can guess some of it, but no doubt the homilists are
right in believing that there is more here than we can reach. The
Gethsemane narrative shows clearly that Jesus was as well acquainted with the loneliness of pain as anyone of us. That his mental pain
could not be shared with any one is easily deduced; for no one else
knew the issues involved. That he should have sought the mere presence of others at this time ought to be revealing. It is not a pleasure
to feel the violent hatred of others, and to know that there are people
who are convinced that your death will make the world a better
place to live in. It is likewise no pleasure to know that those who are
closest to you seem completely unaware of the weight which you
carry. When this happens to us, we call it our private hell.
We noticed above that when we think of the suffering which Jesus
endured as Son of Man, we are likely to concentrate on the passion
so intensely that we do not notice other things in the gospels. These
other things should not be exaggerated; in the preceding paragraphs
it will be thought by some readers that I have worked too diligently
to reduce the passion of Jesus to the commonplace. To a degree this
is true; for unless the sufferings of Jesus are something like our own,
I do not see how his experience of suffering can be meaningful for us.
I f he was made of some super-flesh which was insensitive to pain, or
IO
THE
SON OF MAN
MUST SUFFER
if he was endowed with a super-soul which served as an anaesthetic,
he would not really share our sufferings. The community which he
has with us may be more easily observed in other episodes which
are obviously nearer to the commonplace.
The life of Jesus as described in the gospels does not appear to be
one prolonged and uninterrupted agony of pain. He does not appear
as the wealthy nobleman who is compelled to spend some years in
the pigsty. Distressing as it may be, when he dealt with palestinian
peasants he dealt with his own kind of people, the people with
whom he was most at home; and I fear that delicate is one of the
last words we can apply to him. There is no reason to delay on the
quality of palestinian village life, since a certain crudeness was
truthfully commonplace in palestinian villages. Such things as
primitive and crowded housing (or frequently no housing), sub-standard nourishment, a working day of twelve hours or more, a total
absence of anything we would call amusement or recreation, a
wardrobe of a cloak and a tunic, constant harassment by one's
betters, day to day subsistence on the margin of destitution: these
were the life of the villager, and the villager would not count them
among his sufferings. Here Jesus seemed to fare no better and no
worse than his class. But it seems legitimate to conclude that he was
also familiar with the few simple pleasures which belonged to the
villager, and that he appreciated them. The villager is both clannish
and gregarious; he enjoys the company of his own, and in the almost
total lack of privacy in the village it is better that he should enjoy
it. Nothing in the gospels suggests thatJesus did not enjoy his h u m a n
associations; at least nothing indicates that he was ever thought withdrawn. The many illustrations drawn both from the palestinian
landscape and from the life of the palestinian villager show again
that Jesus knew this life and that he appreciated it. In these illustrations, both in and out of the parables, he spoke to the people he
knew about the things they both knew. In the traditions of ancient
near-eastern wisdom, the wise man was he who could draw a
profound lesson from familiar sights and objects. All these things
suggest that Jesus was thoroughly integrated with the world in
which he lived, and that he enjoyed life up to its full capacity.
Within this village life, however, Jesus was an exceptional figure.
This we easily conclude. It was not merely that he was a rabbi - at
least that was the term which best identified him; this caused no
concern except that he taught without having been a disciple. But
we are puzzled that the villagers did not seem to grasp the fact that
THE
SON OF
MAN
MUST SUFFER
I I
he was exceptional. This, apparently, was grasped only by those
who became his dedicated enemies. His exceptional mission created
problems, and several times his words refer to this inevitable result
of his mission? They are the problems in h u m a n relations created
by one who departs from conformity, who refuses to accept the
conventions and acts to change them. We have already mentioned
that it is no pleasure to be the object of hatred. No one can enjoy this
except one who has achieved a kind of congealed serf-righteousness.
The self-righteous man can enjoy being hated because he can return
it with such a good conscience. Serf-righteous is not a word which
can be applied to Jesus. That he was indifferent to hatred is an
illegitimate assumption. That he was unfeeling at the knowledge
that he was the object of a campaign of calumny is impossible unless
people meant nothing to him. The worst construction was put upon
his words and actions. The gospels describe a vigilant espionage and
an unremitting whispering campaign which effectively tore down
most of what he built.
At the risk of knocking off some plaster, it must be noticed that
Jesus responded to this hostility with feeling; and this is a sure sign
that it penetrated. 2 The exchanges between Jesus and hostile groups
are not conducted on a high level of politeness; we are, as we have
noticed, in the villages of Palestine, and in these villages insults are
not veiled. 'Whited sepulchres' and 'brood of vipers' are somewhat
stylized in the english bible, but they are not flattering, and they
certainly do not meet the standards of etiquette of parliamentary
debate. They betray the fact that the person who uses them has
been hurt, which is more or less the point we are trying to make.
Again the reaction of Jesus is normal.
The relations of Jesus with his disciples furnish another insight
into the pains which arose from the mission of Jesus. Most modern
commentators on the gospels believe that the galilean ministry of
Jesus, which seems to have occupied the greater part of his public
life, issued in no large and deep penetration into the popular mind.
Measured in terms of numbers of adherents gained, the mission was
a failure. The point may be argued, but it is not necessary for our
purpose to discuss it. If we turn our attention to the effect of the
words of Jesus on that group which was closest to him, which he had
chosen as his disciples, w h i c h had more opportunity to grasp his
1 M t io, 34-36; Lk i2, 5~-53.
2 M t i2, i-4, 34; I5, i - 2 o ; 23, 1-39; Mk 2, 23-3, 6; 7, 1-23; Lk 6, i - i x ; 1 i, 37-52.
I2
THE
SON OF MAN
MUST SUFFER
message than anyone else, the picture of a large band of understanding and devoted followers is difficult to maintain. I f such a
large band existed, then his chosen group must have come from that
element among his listeners which had understood him least. The
dullness of the disciples is quite clear in Mark, so clear that both
M a t t h e w and Luke have softened it somewhat. There can be no
doubt that the picture of Mark is more original, for Matthew and
Luke have preserved m a n y of the sayings and conversations in which
the dullness of the disciples is manifest.
Here, as in the disputes with the pharisees, we see that Jesus
responded to the situation with feeling. 1 The disciples are called
slow-witted, stupid and unbelieving, and on one classic occasion
their leading personality is said to be on the side of the devil and not
of God. 2 In anyone else such language would be an expression of
impatience. Let us at least say that Jesus knew the movement which
grips one who has spent much time and labour on something which
he believes is important, only to have it ignored or frustrated by
simple mindlessness. This again is no pleasure; indeed, it is one of
life's keener disappointments, and in some instances it can reach
almost tragic dimensions. I f Jesus was above such movements of
feeling, the gospels do not suggest it. His reaction to the disciples is
vigorous, scarcely less vigorous than his reaction to the pharisees.
After all, he had reason to expect more from the disciples; and we all
know that those who are closest to us can hurt us more than those
who are remote.
We have remarked above that the candid expression of emotion is
characteristic of the simple culture; the more refined culture believes
that public or even private display of strong emotion should be restrained. This restraint seems to the simple peasant to be not restraint
but insensibility. Because the gospels arise from a simple culture,
neither Jesus nor any one else is often said to manifest emotion; the
listeners could assume that emotion was shown. Rarely is Jesus said
to weep, never is he said to laugh, rarely is a word used which
suggests a movement of anger. 3 The most candid passage under this
heading is the Gethsemane narrative. Jesus is never described in
terms which suggest that he was unfeeling or unresponsive. No
doubt we are correct in attributing to him a fine emotional balance
which never permitted his emotions to go out of controI; but we are
1
Mt I5, I5; I6, 5 - I I ; I7, 20; Mk 7, I8; 8, I 4 - 2 I .
M k 3, 5-
2 Mt 16, 23; Mk 8, 33.
THE
SON
OF MAN
MUST SUFFER
13
much less surely correct in thinking that his behaviour exhibited
what we consider emotional balance and control. If he was an
authentic villager- and nothing indicates that he was not - when he
felt pain it could be easily discerned.
Here also we may appear to be reducing the sufferings of Jesus
to the commonplace; and again in a sense we are. When we talk
about these problems in personal relations, we are talking about a
fact of common experience; and the unique quality of the person and
mission of Jesus does not make the problem any less common.
Such personal problems can range from minor irritations to motives
for murder. They form a major portion of our lives. It is rare that
we are exposed to great danger or to intense pain; what passes for
suffering in our lives is not so intense that we live in a constant emotional crisis. At the same time, we rarely know moments of complete
emotional repose. This is exactly the picture of Jesus which the
• gospels give us. The picture, as we have said, is not of a man who
feels no pain, who is so far above pain that he does not deign to
notice it, but of a man who, however keenly he feels it, does not allow
it to affect his decisions and his course of action. And, as we observed
in speaking of the passion, we seem reluctant to attribute this to the
power of will. We are ready to grant the will-power of Jesus, but we
have our doubts about the power of his emotions.
In all of this there appears no cult of pain and suffering for their
own sake. Jesus assures his disciples that they will experience pain
by following him. 1 To take up the cross was a figure of speech which
had a quite different impact in the first century from the impact it
has in the twentieth, when a 'cross' may be anything from an
incurable cancer to rain on a picnic. Jesus does not suggest that his
disciples should seek pain; he rather makes it clear that if they remain
disciples they will not have to seek it, it will seek them. He nowhere
demands that they should submit to pain with more restraint than
he showed himself. They need not make themselves unfeeling. What
they must not do is let suffering divert them from their commitments. Suffering is a temptation just as pleasure is a temptation; and
it is a question whether deliberately cultivated suffering is any less a
a temptation than deliberately cultivated pleasure. It is not impossible that the disciple might choose a deliberately cultivated
tolerable pain in preference to the incalculable pain which is risked
by the full commitment of discipleship.
1
M t io, I7-39; 1Vfk i3, 9 - i 3 ; Lk 21, 12-17.
14
THE
SON.OF
MAN
MUST
SUFFER
A consideration of the attitude of Jesus towards his own suffering
would be incomplete without some reference to his attitude towards
the suffering of others. Here brevity is in order, for no one has ever
doubted the compassion of Jesus for his fellow men. We may not
always realize how deeply this compassion was rooted in a sharing
of the common unglamorous suffering of mankind, and it has been
our purpose to emphasize this point. Jesus has no quick cure for
suffering, and he does not promise a world in which there will be no
suffering; nothing but the coming of the reign of God will bring this
to pass. Nor does he present any rationalization of suffering; after
the gospel, as before, suffering is still one of the great irrational factors in human life. Jesus shows how one can live with it, not how one
can think it out of existence. Indeed he shows more, for it is by this
very human condition that man, incorporated in Christ, will rise to
a new life. All of these are rather obvious theological statements; but
they do not change the fact that Jesus showed compassion. We have
no record of his saying to anyone in pain, 'But it is so good for you'.
We turn to the parables, which show so much awareness of the
importance of the little things in life. We see the anguish of a woman
so poor that she must sweep the whole house to find a lost coin? We
share the weariness of the shepherd who finds at the end of the day
that his count shows one missing sheep. ~ We learn of the bewildered
desperation of the husbandman who sees that his wheat crop turns
out to be mostly weeds. ~ We have the shocking contrast of the starving beggar dying at the door of a man who eats to his heart's
content. 4 We are told of the man who lies robbed and bleeding in
the ditch, and sees those who could help him pass on their way. 5
We hear of the sheer terror of the man who is hopelessly in debt with
no way out. 6 We have a vivid picture of men whose livelihood is the
wage of the day, standing in the market place from dawn through
most of the afternoon, and there is no work for them. 7 These are not
the human tragedies of which great literature is made. But they
are the stuff of life, the life which Jesus knew and could describe with
feeling which is apparent in the somewhat sober prose of the gospels.
The compassion of Jesus is luminously evident in the miracle stories. These are almost without exception accounts of how Jesus dealt
with individual existing problems of suffering. The gospels here present him as the person in whom the reign of God enters the world
1
a
Lk i5, 8- 9 .
Lk i6, I9-22.
s
2 M t ~8, I 2 - 1 3 ; L k i 5 , 3 - 6 .
Lk io, 3o-3i.
6 Mt i8, 23-30.
8
Mt i3, 24-30.
T M t 20, i - 6 .
THE
SON OF MAN
MUST SUFFER
I5
and moves against the powers of sin and death. Suffering belongs
to the reign of sin and death, and suffering cannot be attacked unless
its roots are attacked. When Jesus is asked to cure a paralytic he
first forgives sins; the theological implications are apparent, and no
explanation is necessary. 1 Several times also he expresses simple human compassion for a fellow human being who is in pain. He is
indignant at the pharisees who believe that a woman who has been
crippled for eighteen years can wait one more day for a cure until
the Sabbath rest is ended." The anger of Jesus at this point is most
revealing, for if the question is weighed in the scale of absolutes the
c o m p l a i n t of the pharisees is quite reasonable. The Sabbath is
important, and one day does not seem to add much to eighteen
years. Yet it is the sheer reasonableness of the pharisaic position
which angers Jesus. This is to put things before persons, to treat
human suffering as a calculable factor - in short, to use it. When
people are suffering, there is no reasonable cause for delay which
can be urged.
The same theme appears in stories of the disputes of Jesus with
the pharisees concerning the Sabbath observance. He allows the
Sabbath to interfere with no human need, even if the need be small.
When the disciples nibbled at the raw grain in the fields, there is no
doubt they were h u n g r y ; modern civilized man rarely if ever experiences the perpetual hunger of the poor. But they were not, in the
terms of their own life, starving; nevertheless, the pettiness of the
pharisiaic observance again arouses the anger of Jesus. Such an
attitude shows more interest in the welfare of draught animals
than in the welfare of people. ~
Nothing drew more severe words from Jesus, words in which anger
is evident, than words and actions which bring suffering to others. 4
Scarcely less severity is shown to indifference to h u m a n suffering
which one has not actively caused; we are reminded of the parable
of Dives and Lazarus, in which the rich man is damned for literally
doing nothing. Perhaps this particular species of moral fault should
be more prominently listed in our catalogues of vices. The great test
recounted in Matthew is entirely concerned with what one has done
or failed to do to alleviate the suffering ofothers.S The more obvious
and vicious crimes against the human person do not appear in this
1 M t 9, 2-7; Mk 2, I - I 2 ; Lk 5, I7-°6.
M t z~, I - 8 ; Mk ~, ~3-~7; Lk 6, i - 5.
M t ~5, 3I-46.
~ Lk 13, xo-i 7.
4 M t 18, 32-34; °3, 4..
16
THE
SON
OF
MAN
MUST
SUFFER
list; after all, Jesus is speaking to his disciples, and it could be
presumed that they had learned some basic lessons which were
taught in judaism. But they had not learned what this passage tells
them, that if they have committed no crime against their neighbour,
it is still not enough. The failure here is simply the failure to take
action against suffering when one encounters it; and this lesson can
still be proclaimed in the Church.
Let us sum up if we can these scattered reflections. Our emphasis
has been less on the great and the tragic sufferings in the life ofJesus
and more on the commonplace in his sufferings. It is in tile commonplace rather than in the great and tragic that we are more aware
of his community with us. In his sufferings we discern tile gospel
theme that suffering is a part of the reign of sin and death; it is evil,
not good, and the heart of the mystery of our redemption is that we
are saved through something which is involved with sin and death.
The gospel does not require us to praise suffering or to affirm that it
has a goodness which it does not have. Suffering is a part of the
human condition, that condition which in biblical language is called
a curse.
We observe that Jesus was neither unusually sensitive to suffering
nor unusually insensitive, as far as we can deduce from the gospels.
We observe that the christian attitude does not require an unfeeling
response to suffering. Jesus responded emotionally not only to the
great and tragic suffering of his passion, but also to the lesser pains
of life. We have paid particular attention to this where the pains
are the result either of the malice or of the thoughtlessness of others;
for do not our own sufferings come mostly from these ? And in the
last analysis, we suffer far more from the thoughtlessness of others
than we do from their malice. In both instances we see that Jesus
let people know what they were doing, and let them know that he
did not like it. I am not sure that calm acceptance is altogether the
apt phrase to describe this attitude. One may, and no doubt will,
distinguish his response to merely personal suffering and to the
suffering involved in his mission; but to others this distinction will be
meaningless.
Yet this is the same .Jesus who tells us that the greatest christian
act is the love of one's enemies; and unless his life was altogether
inconsistent, we must believe that this reaction to hostility and
stupidity was not inconsistent with love. We often fear that such a
reaction is inconsistent with love; yet is it love to permit people to inflict pain on others ? One might argue that the gospels make very little
THE
SON OF MAN MUST SUFFER
17
difference between inflicting pain and permitting its infliction. We
have observed that it is in this area of conduct that Jesus speaks with
greatest severity. Whatever be one's attitude towards one's suffering,
one is never free, it seems, to be indifferent to the suffering of others.
Jesus does not promise that we can create a world free of suffering,
b u t he does seem to expect that we shall deal with it when we meet it
as if we could. The christian's response to the suffering of others is
scarcely more tolerant than his response to sin.
The christian can do something with suffering which he cannot
do with sin, and that is to take it from others upon himself. This is
what we believe that Jesus himself did, and we believe that he
empowered us to do it. In fact he offers no other solution to the
problem of suffering in the world. Christians may ask both the
Church and themselves how much this power has been exercised
in the past and how much it is exercised in the present. One knows
that most schemes for a better life and a better world are proposed
with little attention given to vicarious suffering. They proceed as if
man's suffering had no connection with man's sin, as if we could
move against suffering without getting as deeply involved in it as
Jesus was; and for that reason one has reservations about their success. When the gospels are read closely and thoughtfully on this question, they appear to be the most practical documents we possess.
IF A N Y M A N
WILL COME AFTER
By T H O M A S
ME
HAND
BOUT A YEAR AGO a seven year old youngster was killed
at a railroad crossing in Kamakura, Japan. For some reason
f ' ~ \ h e did not notice the speeding electric car and was hit and
, ~ killed instantly. To add to the tragedy, he was an only son
and, since he had been born with great difficulty, there was little
hope that there could be other children. His parents, a good Catholic
couple, accepted their loss heroically; but yet, for everyone who
knows them, there still remains the ache and the m y s t e r y . . , the
mystery of suffering.
Tragedies like this, some lesser and some greater, are happening
in thousands of places, causing pain to hundreds of thousands of
h u m a n persons every day and hour. Man is constantly being confronted with suffering and is being forced to adopt some kind of
attitude and conduct in relation to it.
Most people, it would seem, adopt the attitude expressed in such
sayings as C'est la vie; Qu~ sera, sera; That's life; or the japanese,
Shikata ga nai - there's nothing that can be done. All these are expressions of the ordinary man's existential acceptance of suffering.
Such an attitude contains real wisdom, in as much as it accepts the
actual situation and, to some degree, contains the hope that it is all
for the good, that somehow there is a meaning beneath the mystery.
However, since the death of Christ on the cross, all has changed.
A whole new attitude toward h u m a n suffering has taken root in
mankind. The acceptance of the fact remains, but it is even more
realistic. The mystery also remains but has been incomparably
reduced by the almost blinding light of the resurrection. For the
man of faith, fully accepted sufferings can issue into such a profound
experience of resurrectional union even in this life, that it is a commonplace for christians to speak of joy in suffering. And some holy
people have even prayed either to suffer or to die. This article,
then, will examine the attitude and conduct of a true christian in
time of suffering.
IF ANY
MAN
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AFTER
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19
T H E CHRISTIAN CALL TO SUFFERING
In the synoptics
The first challenging fact is that suffering is our vocation. Nothing is
clearer in the New Testament than the call of every disciple of
Christ to follow him in suffering and death. The importance our
Lord gives to this call is inescapable. At Caesarea Philippi, when the
Lord asked what people and what the apostles thought of him,
Peter answered from his heart, 'You are the Messiah'. O u r Lord
accepted this identification of himself; and 'From that time Jesus
began to make it clear to his disciples that he had to go to Jerusalem,
and there to suffer much from the elders, chief priests, and lawyers;
to be put to death and to be raised again on the third d a y ' ? The
impact of these words on the apostles was shattering. Such words
demanded a complete re-identification of the Messiah and of themselves as his disciples.
At this Peter took him by the arm and began to rebuke him;
Heaven forbid, he said. No, Lord, this shall never happen to
you. Then Jesus turned and said to Peter, Away with you,
Satan; you are a stumbling-block to me. You think as men
think, not as God thinks. ~
Having insisted in the strongest terms on the picture of a Messiah
who is to accomplish his mission through suffering and death,
Christ goes on to demand the same of his disciples.
Jesus then said to his disciples, If anyone wishes to be a
follower of mine, he must leave self behind; he must take up
his cross and come with me. Whoever cares for his own safety
is lost; b u t ira man will let himself be lost for my sake, he will
find his true self. What will a man gain by winning the whole
world, at the cost of his true self? Or what can he give that
will b u y that self back? For the Son of M a n is to come in the
glory of his Father with his angels, and then he will give each
man the due reward for what he has done2
All three synoptics record this important passage with only slight
differences. In fact, 'The language suggests that jesus frequently
spoke in this way'.~ Certainly the same idea, even in the same phrases,
1 Mt I 6 , 2 I .
z Mt 16,2~-23.
3 Mt 16,24-27 .
4 According to a note in the Oxford Annotated Bible ( R S V p I~56).
20
IF ANY
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ME
occurs repeatedly in the synoptics. 1 In Luke, however, there is a
very significant addition to the phrase 'he must take up his cross':
Luke adds, 'day after day', which clearly shows that the following
of Christ in suffering and death is not just a question of martyrdom,
but is quite legitimately extended to all dying to self through suffering, and to the rising to a higher degree of unity with God and man.
In St John
The fundamental call to suffering is made just as clearly in St
John, with typical johannine imagery.
Then Jesus replied: The hour has come for the Son of M a n
to be glorified. In truth, in very truth I tell you, a grain of
wheat remains a solitary grain unless it falls into the ground
and dies; b u t if it dies, it bears a rich harvest. The man who
loves himself is lost, but he who hates himself in this world
will be kept safe for eternal life. I f anyone serves me, he must
follow me; where I am, my servant will be. Whoever serves
me will be honoured by my Father. ~
Jesus is here replying to the request that some greeks have made to
meet him. This request at once reminds him of his appointed task as
Messiah of the greeks and all men. This task is 'his hour' of suffering,
death, and resurrection. H e then goes on to say: 'And I shall draw
all men to myself when I am lifted up from the earth. This he said to
indicate the kind of death he was to die'. 3 It is in this context that
Christ calls upon each of us to be his servants. We are to follow him
in service. His service was to die and to become perfectly open to
union with all. Our service, too, is to die to the closed self and thus
open out our true selves to perfect union with him and all others.
Christian service is always to create the conditions for an ever more
perfect union.
In the epistles
One of the purposes of the First Letter of St Peter was to give
courage to the christians in Asia Minor who were undergoing
persecution. Again, the call to follow Christ in suffering is forceful
and clear.
x
C f M t io, 30; M k IO, 32-34; Lk 14, 25-33J n 12, 32-33.
~ J n io, 23-26.
IF
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2I
Remembering that Christ endured bodily suffering, you must
arm yourselves with a temper of mind like his. When a man
has thus endured bodily suffering, he has finished with sin,
and for the rest of his days on earth he may live, not for the
things that men desire, but for what God wills. 1 M y dear
friends, do not be bewildered by the fiery ordeal that is upon
you, as though it wer e something extraordinary. It gives you
a share in Christ's suffering, and that is cause for joy; and
when his glory is revealed, your j o y will be t r i u m p h a n t :
The Letter to the Hebrews, after recalling a long list of heroes and
heroines of the faith, exhorts all to persevere in following Christ in
the very path he laboured along.
And what of ourselves? With all these witnesses to faith
around us like a cloud, we must throw off every encumbrance, every sin to which we cling, and run with resolution
the race for which we are entered, our eyes fixed on Jesus,
on whom faith depends from start to finish: Jesus who, for
the sake of the joy that lay ahead of him, endured the cross,
making light of its disgrace, and has taken his seat at the
right hand of the throne of God. 3
For St Paul, the identification of the christian with the Christ who
suffered, died and rose is absolutely fundamental and pervades all
his writings. In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, for example,
after writing about the daily martyrdom of his apostolic fife, he
writes:
.
Wherever we go we carry death with us in our body, the
death that Jesus died, that in this body also life may reveal
itself, the life that Jesus lives. For continually, while still alive,
we are being surrendered into the hands of death, for Jesus ~
sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be revealed in this
mortal body of o u r s :
Then, starting from his own experience, Paul clearly teaches that all
men are called to die with Christ and rise even now to the new order
of resurrectional unity.
For the love of Christ leaves us no choice, when once we have
reached the conclusion that one man died for all and there1
i P e t 4 , x-2.
~
Ibid.,4, 12-x3.
a
H e b ~ , x-2.
4
2 Cot4, io-xI.
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fore all mankind has died. His purpose in dying for all was
that men, while still in life, should cease to live for themselves,
and should live for him who for their sake died and was raised
to life. With us therefore worldly standards have ceased to
count in our estimate of any man; even if once they counted
in our understanding of Christ, they do so now no longer.
When anyone is united to Christ, there is a new world; the
old order has gone, and a new order has already b e g u n ?
Conclusion
In all the texts given here we have the basic theme of the whole
New Testament: the risen Christ, Christ, the Lord, is the suffering
servant who died and rose so that all might follow him in dying to
this-world-isolation and in rising to perfect human-divine union.
The theme of St Peter's first sermon, the first sermon of the newly
born Church, 2 was the risen Lord who saved us from the evil of
disunity by suffering, death, and resurrection. The message is always
the same, but the means used to proclaim it are different. The gospels
preach the risen Christ through the events of his h u m a n life and
death and rising. St Paul preaches the same, using the actual situation of the people to whom he was preaching, and the writings of the
Old Testament. But this same gospel was first proclaimed by Christ
himself immediately after his resurrection. This proclamation also
stresses the same conclusion, that suffering is integral to the vocation
of a christian. Personal commitment tO Christ is unthinkable without
unconditional acceptance of ail that was integral to his own living
out, in h u m a n terms, of his divine personality, his sonship.
THE
PASCHAL
PATTERN
Christ's use of scripture
To the two desolate disciples walking to Emmaus, our Lord
exclaimed: ' H o w dull you are! H o w slow to believe all that the
prophets said! Was the Messiah not bound to suffer thus before
entering upon his glory? Then he began with Moses and all the
prophets, and explained to them the passages which referred to
himself in every part of the scriptures'. ~And the Lord continued this
method of proclaiming his great tidings that same evening when he
appeared to the 'eleven and the rest of the company'.
1 Ibld., 5, I 4 - I 7 .
~
A c t s 2.
8
L k 24, 2 5 - 2 7 -
IF ANY MAN WILL
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23
A n d h e said to them, This is what I meant by saying, while
I was still with you, that everything written about me in
the law of Moses and in the prophets and the psalms was
bound to be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. This, he said, is what is written: that
the Messiah is to suffer death and to rise from the dead on
the third day, and that in his name repentance bringing the
forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed to all nations. Begin
from Jerusalem: it is you who are the witnesses to all this. 1
One thing that stands out in these passages is the importance our
Lord gives to the scriptures. He turns to them for his whole explanation of his death and resurrection. M a n y years ago this writer used
to wonder about all this concern for fulfilling the scriptures. M a y b e
it was important for the feelings of the jews, but it hardly seemed of
importance to the twentieth century 'me'. But, as modern insights
into salvation history point out so well, the scriptures have to be
fulfilled; not merely because something is written there, but because
what is written there is the revelation of the great plan of God. It
would be wonderful if we had the full text of our Lord's scriptural
explanation of the salvation event, but it would seem that we know
its basic theme: the paschal mystery.
The first pasch
M a n must proceed from death at one level of existence to a more
perfect life at a higher level. Throughout all the scriptures, in a
thousand different types and prophecies, this basic pattern is proclaimed. It is clearly an evolutionary process in which creatures
move from one degree of unity to a higher, more extensive union.
The price is always that the merging elements die to their former state
as they rise to the higher level. The greatest of all the prototypes of
this life-giving pattern is the pasch. This is the name given to the whole
event in which jews were led from life in Egypt to a new life as
God's people in the promised land. The process started with a state
of suffering. In the days of Joseph, who rose to be the man who
ranked second in all the land to the Pharaoh, the jews must have felt
right at home in Egypt. But with the passage of centuries their
condition became so bad that they could no longer identify themLk ~4, 44--47.
2~
IF A N Y M A N W I L L
COME AFTER
ME
selves as having a real place in Egypt. It was this suffering that made
them ready to follow Moses out into the desert and seek God there.
Moses was the leader, the evolutionary prototype who first fled to
the desert and there met God and experienced his peace. Then,
again, after the people had followed him to the foot of Sinai, it was
Moses who experienced the great theophany on top of the mountain
and who came down to establish the solemn covenant whereby
Israel became God's people. During the time of trial in the desert,
while the people were being t a u g h t what it meant to be God's
people, they sometimes lost their trust and identification with him.
They even began to yearn for the fleshpots of Egypt. But at last
they made the final passage through the J o r d a n and entered into a
new life of union with God and each other.
The new and definitive Moses
Here is the great prototype which gives its name to every repetition of the pattern. Is it not quite vMid to assert that it was this paschal
pattern that Christ traced when he 'began with Moses and all the
prophets and explained to them the passages which referred to
himself in every part of the scriptures'? His own passage to the
Father is the actual event which gives full reality to all the previous
and future repetitions of the pattern. In the flow of time there had to
be an event which pierced through to the permanence of eternity.
O u t of the limited condition of matter there had to be a breakthrough into the limited world of 'spiritual' matter. It is this event
that gives meaning to all the countless repetitions in time and place
of the paschal pattern. So it was precisely in the context of the annual
commemoration of the pasch that the Saviour died to his life in thisworld-flesh and rose to stand as man in the relationship of the Son to
the Father in the unity of the holy Spirit. In the ancient passage
from suffering in Egypt to the joy of new life with God in Israel, it
was Moses who was the light and leader, who first sought God and
entered into union with him. Now, in the definitively real passage,
it is the new Moses who has gone ahead. This is why he is truly the
'light of the world'.
'The world' here does not merely mean the whole world in a kind
of quantitative and numerical sense. For St John, the word has a
more qualitative meaning. It means creation in as much as it is
separated from God and is in terrible need of dying to its present
state of being in order to rise to a higher form of unity. Christ is the
IF ANY
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25
light leading us all along this path of progress. But a light, to be of
any use, must go in front of us, though not too far ahead. And so the
Son became man and, as man, told us clearly about the need to
suffer and die in order to enter into a state of union far beyond the
wildest, most visceral, most over-powering longing of the h u m a n
spirit. And then he took the step into the providence of the Father
and rose to the new life. It is this light that reassures us in all our
sufferings during this desert time of preparation for the final definitive passage to life.
An act of love
The whole paschal process must be seen in terms of love, for love is
the drive for union. One of St Paul's most beautiful expressions of
Christ's love for us is: 'The Son of God, who loved me and sacrificed
himself for me'.l Let us paraphrase it in the terms we have developed
here. Who loved me: He wanted to take me and all mankind into
a perfect h u m a n unity. Therefore, he came and took flesh. He
entered this state of flesh, this state of disunion. He identified himself
with me. And sacrificed himself for me: He encountered and bore all
the forces of disunion: insults, rejection, bodily pain, interior sufferings. He bore all that could close the h u m a n heart against God, man,
and lower creatures. He trod the path of the fallen man even to the
very disuniting of his own h u m a n composite into body and soul. But
through it all he remained open to the Father, to man, to all creation. He loved to the end and to the utmost. For this reason, because
of the perfect fidelity of his love, he was raised to a new life. He passed on into a state of total openness, total love, total readiness for
perfect union. 'Because of his humble submission his prayer was
heard: son though he was, he learned obedience in the school of
suffering, and, once perfected, became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him'. ~ When he rose from.the dead, the state
of his body was matched to the state of his heart. Just as his heart
was completely open and in a state of love toward all beings, so now
his body is ready to unite with all matter to form a perfect unity.
It is precisely this unity that brings us into that eternal unity
with the Father in the Spirit that is his from all eternity.
Gal 2, 20.
2 H e b 5, 7-8.
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T H E CHRISTIAN AND SUFFERING
In the context of love
So far, we have been trying to sketch out the christian attitude
toward suffering. In this final section we will stress the fundamental
point of charity, and then conclude with one practical application
of all that has been said. Every h u m a n being shares in the common
drive for unity. Love is the basic drive in man. In a larger sense it is
the basic drive ill all being. Suffering can only make sense within
the integrating movement of love. Pain actually arises out of this
basic drive in as much as pain is man's conscious reaction to
disorder and disunion. Suffering is nothing but love reacting to a
state of being that is contrary to the union it is seeking. To love in
the here and now must mean suffering. Therefore Christ in his
love for us says: 'Leave self behind, take up your cross day by day,
and follow me'. We must put to death the false self which is driving
toward isolation and disunion. This can be done only in suffering,
since pain arises from love's movement toward perfect unity as it
collides with all the forces of sin and disunion. But the key to all
is the Lord's 'Follow me'. Personal love for him will bring us even
to rejoice in suffering; for pain is the spur which agitates the drive
of love to reach out to always greater unity. We know that the
power of disunion will ultimately destroy our very physical composite, but if we suffer this with him, it will be the final passage
from this-world-loneliness into the perfect union of his risen
humanity.
Even though we know it to be true somehow, we still cannot but
wonder how all h u m a n suffering can truly be an actual part of the
evolutionary progress towards union. How, for example, does the
tragic death of that youngster to which we referred at the beginning
fit into such an optimistic vision of h u m a n life? One reason that
we will never be able fully to fathom this is that we are not able to
see the deep relationship between all creatures. What happens to
one affects all. This person - I - will only be complete when I am
in perfect union with all creation in Christ. All suffering does
work towards this final death of the h u m a n race to this-worldisolation and its resurrection to the final union ill Christ. I cannot
fully understand all this but I must begin where I can - in my own
life - consciously, joyfully to die to self and to enter into resurrectional union with the Son before the Father in the holy Spirit.
IF ANY MAN WILL
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27
Psychological suffering
Each of us lives in his own private world. We cannot help but
see things in relation to ourselves, and all reality is coloured by our
own self-concept. Everyone has areas of falsity in his self-concept
and I will only be perfect when my self-consciousness is identical
with that of the true Son of God made man. For the sake of example,
suffice my self-concept to be shot through with a guilt complex.
Suffice that, in the course of a very strict unbringing, I gradually
came to identify myself as never performing adequately, as never
achieving what was demanded. This may have been reinforced by
some actual sins and culpable failures, so that now I live constantly,
though largely unconsciously, in a feeling of guilt and inferiority.
I cannot take myself or my ideas seriously. This complex will
always produce at least a dull suffering, but it will happen that
sometimes I get into situations in which the flaws in my personality
cause acute pain. I realize that there is something wrong with the
pattern of my response to reality. I have a terrible sense of this not
being the 'true me'. Because I am not in order and do not possess
myself correctly, I cannot freely and openly enter into communion
with others, even with Christ. A psychologist can help me to see
my actual state, to see its causes, to see it as evil. But the deepest
and ultimate salvation dan only come from m y encounter with
Christ. To experience his acceptance and that of the Father, this is
what will create the true image of myself. This will recreate my
private world into a world that is no longer private. I must go into
the desert of trust and follow Christ into a new world of resurrectional union. Perfect h u m a n union must be bodily. Therefore, while
still in this-world-flesh, I must always suffer because of disunion.
But I rejoice in this saving pain which spurs me on to put to death
the self of disorder and isolation. The final goal, the new life, still
remains a mystery; but the revelation 0fits reality has been made in
the actual event, the historical resurrection of the Son of Man.
The glory of God shining in the face of the risen Christ: with this
our gospel begins and ends. Christ is risen and alive! H e is totally
open to us, even in his Body. O u r relationship to him is deeper and
more real than to any other person. Union with him is the actual
goal of all human striving, of all human suffering.
SALVATION
THROUGH SUFFERING
By J O S E P H
P. W H E L A N
HE P R I M A R Y and the finally important things that ought
to be said about man, and about each one o f us, are not
problems. W h a t man fundamentally is, what he does, what
happens to him - these are not problems. For they are not
available to man for adequate analysis or definitive solution. They
lie too deep for that. Man, at the roots of his being and his activity,
where he stands partner to his world, his fellows and his God, is a
mystery. We ponder mystery, we entertain it, we try to formulate
and structure it ever and anew. We criticize our past attempts to do
so and begin again, or further build on what seems adequate. The
aim and the task is to keep the mystery whole and immediate, so
that the mind may recognize its importance and the heart may
become involved in its beauty, that man may experience the reality
of which the mystery speaks, and respond to the mystery of himself,
his world and his God.
No mystery assails the heart of man so immediately, or so
scandalizes his faith in his God and in himself, as does the mystery
of suffering. And none has cast more doubt upon the nature of
salvation or the value of this world. Every man finds the mystery
of suffering thrust upon him, carved into the marrow of his own
bone and spirit. And if he loves, he is likely to confront it even more
fearfully in the tears of others. M a n may not opt for or against
suffering. It is there: a battering experience whose history man
fears and whose future he can count on.
At the same time, there are ways of taking thought or action
against the mystery of pain. For example, it can be denied that
suffering is mysterious at all by reducing it to one of those h u m a n
problems as yet unsolved; an incredibly formidable problem, of
course, which may never be answered or controlled completely.
But on this view, the answers are theoretically within man's reach
if he will persevere. Such a view is probably not a common one.
The inner reaches of the heart give the lie to such a hope, in spite of
what our philosophers tell us.
T
SALVATION
THROUGH
SUFFERING
29
There is another view which also denies to suffering the quality
of mystery. Here suffering is seen, not as a problem to be explored,
but as a question to which there is no answer, anywhere. Suffering
is experienced not as mysterious or problematic, but as absurd.
And man and world, through whom pain makes its mute and
grimacing way, are nonsense too. The appropriate response to
such a chaos will be endurance or despair. One can only argue
about which response is the more apposite, but about nothing else.
There need be nothing superficial in this view; the courage of its
unbelief, the integrity with which it lives with its conclusions,
contains a wisdom which should give the christian pause.
A further view of suffering, one which demands some degree of
faith, however primitive, fully affirms the unanswerable mystery.
But there is little insight into the relationship of suffering and love.
It is at this point that christianity can explode within the spirit of
the man of faith: it may darken his mind further to the mystery by
the very fullness of its revelation, but it will enliven his heart by
the beauty of its promise. What is affirmed in this inchoate revelation, and what has to be fought for, is the conviction that the
answer to the mystery of suffering does exist, that it is contained
within the wisdom of Another, and that this Other can be trusted.
The splendid effort of the heart involved u p o n this trust is classically displayed in that most impatient of the scriptures, the Book of
J o b . M a n fairly shouts there for a further revelation and for a
greater mystery that will deepen even as it clarifies. M a n asks for
justice in the Book of Job, as he seeks escape from pain. But it will
be his good fortune if the request is swept aside; for that w a y lies
only death. The Lord of fife, in his own good time, will reply
instead with that deepest love which is self-giving. This will mark
a second, and specifically christian, reception of the mystery of
suffering: Life that dies in agony, that we may die no more; J o y
that grieves unbearably, for the building of our peace.
Sin, the sin of the world, the sins of each man and his responsibifity for them, his experience of sin and his belief in it: all this is not
a topic for discussion here. We simply accept it as fact. Sin, especially for St John, is h a t e ? It is disunity, rupture, it is to be at odds,
apart from, to walk another way. It is the distance and estrangement A d a m knew at once and to his shame, before God and
towards his wife. It is the decision of Cain to walk apart from Abel.
Cf i Jn ~asslm;Jn 5, 38; 8, 34ft.
3°
SALVATION
THROUGH
SUFFERING
And man's instinct ever since has been to classify his world in
order to divide and separate it, whether by colour, creed, or economics. Sin is also the rupture within the man himself, the lie the
mind tells to the heart, the betrayal of the spirit by the flesh. Even
in the beauty of our h u m a n loves we catch the rhythm and the
footfall of this sickness unto death. The very goodness of our lives is
shadowed by the curse that has been dealt us. Sin that even stalks
our innocence, taxing it with suffering, with loneliness, and death.
In the person of Jesus Christ, the Godhead enters history and
the world: not to destroy that world, but to confront it with himself, as he is. God is that condition of Persons who are completely
at one, perfectly and endlessly together, present to one another in
mutual self-surrender. Thus, the revelation of Christ's divinity is
specified. H e is not thrust into our history simply as our God.
H e is revealed to us and for us as our God the Son, the Son of a
most loving Father. And the love, the self-donation, that is given
and received between them, is a gift so joyous and complete that it
is a Person like and equal to themselves: the holy Spirit of Father
and Son.
This is the love affair that breaks in upon our history of sin,
upon our world of shattered loyalties, our land of Cain that lies
far east of Eden. Our world, in a word, of hate. We would expect
the confrontation of hate and unconditioned love to be drastic and
explosive. And so it is. In one man, one of our own, Jesus Christ,
this love affair assumes our world of hate, not to contract its guilt,
but to forgive it: to assume its grievous aftermath of suffering,
loneliness and death. In becoming man, he took on our flesh of
sin, 1 and then forgave it in himself. He forgave us in and through
his Christ, that we might then forgive ourselves, bless one another,
and our world. This is the atonement; it is the walking together, the
being at one, of God and man: and so, too, of man and man, the
brothers of Christ. As man had given Christ his flesh, so Christ
gives man his Spirit; the brothers become sons, who can say,
with the Son, abba, Father [2
This is salvation. It is a fact for one man, Jesus Christ. For the
rest, it is a possibility. The salvation of Jesus Christ reaches its
victorious conclusion in the enactment of his passage to the Father.
But it was a road to travel, a passage to be made. The salvation of
the Son of God who is now also Son of Man, the coming together
Cf2 Cor5,~I;Rom8,3.
o C f R o m 8 , I-r7.
SALVATION
THROUGH
SUFFERING
3I
of lover and beloved, the end of loneliness and hate: all this occurs
at the very moment of dereliction and of death. He was alone, and
the loneliness became union. And then he d i e d ; and the death
turned out to be life and perfect love. 'He handed over his spirit' ;1
he gave his Father all the love he had: the holy Spirit. And with
his Father he poured out that Spirit upon all men, bringing to
birth his bride the Church in a community of love with himself and
of all men with each other.
This happened to the Man. H e suffered and was saved. This
salvation is available to all men; but there is a road to travel, a
passage to be made. This is the suffering through which lies the
entrance into glory. Salvation is an exodus, a journey from the
isolated self into community. There are no options here; there is
only his way to walk, his truth to trust, his life to live. There is but
one altar, one victim, one priest. Christ's work is done, and its
effect remains: salvation wrought by pain. We are bidden in both
liturgy and life to follow and repeat it in effective commemoration.
And here we face our fact. Christ's salvation of the world was
won through suffering and loneliness, death and resurrection. This
alone is what saved us; not life alone, nor death alone, but pain and
death for the sake of life. We are taught here, yet with no questions
asked or answered, what is and shall be the meaning of love, and
what the cost of hate. It is a pierced and gloriously risen Christ
who is and will remain forever the apple of his Father's eye. ~
• And still this suffering and loneliness, this death and resurrection
remain an impenetrable mystery. W h y could not love forgive, and
then let be ? Why could not love astonish and defeat our petty hate,
except by suffering, by loneliness and tears, by sorrow unto death?
W h y could not life conquer death except by dying? The Old
Testament is crowded with shadows of what Christ will do: with
Isaac, 8 and the covenant made by Yahweh with Israel when Moses
sprinkled blood on the altar and the people, to signify the union and
new friendship of the living God and man. * It tells what
Christ will do and what his deed effects. But it does not finally tell
us why Christ had to suffer. We are left with the mystery of a divine
and suffering messiah who died for love. I do not understand this
love, or why he had to die, I know it, I experience it, and I am
asked to follow. 'Master, where do you live'? 'Come and see'. 5
1 Jn x9,3 ° .
E x o d 24, 3-8.
"* C f J n 19, 37s J n I, 3 8 - 9 .
~
Gen22,
~-xS.
32
SALVATION THROUGH
SUFFERING
He died for our sins, and rose for our justification. And Paul
goes on: We are baptized into his death, buried with him by
baptism into death, and by his resurrection, we walk in newness of
life? The deed of God in Christ, and our baptism into it, transforms
the world, the world of men and trees, of the city and the tomb.
It is a new creation, alive to God, become one in the h u m a n flesh
of Christ. The baptismal waters of death and life build us into that
victory of Christ, and through him, into one another.
But baptism is not a magic moment that destroys our history
and time, nor does it shatter our psychology. Salvation kills our sin,
our hate, but not its consequences. Our sin and hate took time; they
have a history and a structure in our flesh and our psychology, and
in the world about us. Our love must have a history too, as did
Christ's. The victory of Christ will never be gainsaid, but it, too,
will have a history. Our evil shall be ailowed to test it, and our
suffering augment it, as Paul says. ~
Salvation is Christ's love for us; it is his holy Spirit offered to
our freedom. In that Spirit, in each one of us, Christ makes his
passage once again, as many times as there are men to make it,
if we will have it so: through suffering and loneliness, to death
and resurrection.
Suffering, then, is integral to the mystery of Christ. Yet we must
not sentimentalize his suffering; it is a thing to fear and dread.
Christ was a teacher in Israel, with powerful gifts of mind and
heart and personality, who wanted to succeed and to find happiness
as a man. We mock the man if we say less than that. And suffering
sent him grovelling to the earth in sweating panic in the very hour
of his glory2 Suffering is an evil, the aftermath of hate. Yet the
intelligence of God in Christ found in its irrational terrors a fruitful
passage back to his own love.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ, his coming to life again in his
Father's love, is our salvation. It is the term of a passage that we
have briefly sketched: suffering, loneliness, death - and resurrection.
And we follow Christ in this. But what of Christ's history as a man
who loved and ate and slept, who grieved for Lazarus? W h a t of
the work of the carpenter who lent his hands and strength, as all
are called to do, to the building of man's city here on earth? Was
this salvific for himself, for us? The question is not: Did his life
contribute to the salvation that was perfectly wrought in his death
1 Rom6,3-5.
o Colx, 24.
3 Mt26,37ff;MkI4,32ff;Lk22,4Iff.
SALVATION
THROUGH
SUFFERING
33
and resurrection? We know that it did. The question is rather:
Was work well done worth doing for itself, was his grief and laughter part of the kingdom of God, or only a preparation for it? I f so,
then the passage itself, the suffering and loneliness and death, is
only a means, and not itself a part of the love which is salvation.
We who live in the gift-time of the resurrection, the kairos of the
Spirit, must ask ourselves the same questions. What of our world,
our material world, a part of which is forever the risen flesh of the
only son of God ? Is life only a time of waiting and of suffering a waiting strengthened by the Spirit, with love and unity - salvation
- appended as a hope? Is the world till now simply a place to test
and baffle us, the battleground of a victory that lies completely
beyond history? What is salvation and when?
There are three kinds of answers which christians have given
throughout history: answers that often differ in emphasis rather
than substance. One which has never ceased to be stressed in our
history sees salvation substantially as a reality of the future life
alone. Baptism is not 'experienced' as salvation, but rather as a
pledge of it, the promise of the means to acquire it. Salvation is a
goal to be attained; it is not immediately available. This world and
all our human loves are good, but they are shot through with peril.
Experience will largely show them to be ashes in the mouth. The
eternal God of the vision of the blessed is man's one true desire.
He is salvation, or rather he will be in the future, when he awaits us
at death with his reward. The world and all our human powers are
opportunities and temptations. They are effectively means: occasions for penitence, for suffering, and for merit. By and large, the
world is that for which St John's Christ refused to p r a y ? In this
view, suffering tends to be seen as a punishment for sin, or a penance
that precedes forgiveness and reward. The objects of our pain and
toil, the work we do and suffer for, are of little or no moment in
themselves. It is will, the intention of the worker, which is significant.
The defect in this view is not that it denies the humanity of
Christ, but that it fails to experience effectively, to understand the
seriousness with which he took our history and his own. Some but
relatively few men have built their entire lives on this principle; and
they, in God's mercy, have become saints. Considerably more live
half their lives this way: building their world, taking their joys and
sorrows as they come, and planning for heaven on the side. It is a
1
C f J n i7, i 4 - i 7.
34
SALVATION THROUGH SUFFERING
blueprint for the divided man: a deficient humanism.
Another answer, which appears to be the opposite of the first, is
that the time of salvation is now. The humanity of God, and our
incorporation into this God-man at baptism, is even now renewing
the face of the earth. The teaching of the greek Fathers, that when
God becomes man, man begins to become like God, is taken at its
word. The flesh of the historical Christ is part of the world, and all
creation shares its splendour, or at least its possibilities. The redemptive act of Christ is operating to its full effect throughout the whole
creation. History and time are now directed, almost entirely, by the
dynamism of the risen Christ communicated to man. Redemptive
contact with the flesh of Christ is actually and not merely potentially
a universal quality, rather than being specifically christian, however hidden. Pushed to its logical extremes, this answer would imply
that the incarnation was the permanent death of God: a trinitarian
death which leaves us with a man, not with that Son whose very
manhood and whole delight is in his Father's will. Tabor would
reveal the Jesus of human history only, the transfigured Christ of
Peter's faith. In this kind of humanism, the mystery of sin and of
sinful man is reduced to an object of psychology, though one admittedly difficult to analyze and master; and suffering becomes an
anomaly and a scandal.
In spite of its glaring deficiences, this humanist answer has perhaps stronger links with salvation than the simple 'contempt of the
world' view. It has an optimism, a hope in the present and in the
immediate future. Salvation is brotherhood in a prosperous city of
man. It lies within reach, if not of this generation, then the next, if
only there be sufficient men free and courageous enough to grow to
their full stature. Yet salvation here is not the triumph of love over
hate through suffering and death. It is the destruction of suffering
by a free mankind that does not need, or at least no longer needs,
redemption. This humanism takes both salvation and suffering very
seriously, but stamps them as antagonists; so that, eventually, salvation lies not through the cross but in its destruction.
The third view seeks to unite all that is best in the other two. It is a
middle way, but is none the less adventurous for that. It allows for
man's continuing dependance, acknowledging that the profound
divinization worked in him by baptism remains sheer gift: the indwelling, not simply of the spirit of the historical Christ, but of the
holy Spirit of the risen Lord, who is in man and for him, but not of
him. Again, it is the body of the historical and risen Christ which the
SALVATION THROUGH SUFFERING
35
Father has made the cornerstone of the now intrinsically valuable
city of man. This is why the worker in this city, whether he throws
rivets or a baseball, whether he cries out because a child is born or
screams in suffering from cancer, or lives with tough nobility in the
confines of neurosis: this worker is doing something that need never
die. For if it is fully human, it can become a part of Christ. In this
view, the world is both religious and profane, and that is the way it
should be. But it remains a road to travel, a passage to be made; one
that leads beyond history to the risen Lord, who draws all creation
to himself, to the honour of his Father, who shall then be all in
all. And yet, paradoxically, the acceptable time is now, for the
kingdom of God is among us, and the God-man shows himself in
every corner of the world we live in. It is often a dark and seemingly
chaotic epiphany in which bulldozers do a work that is needed, but
one that need not pass. It need hardly be said that such a view is
nonsensical except in the light of faith. But salvation is here: the
death of hate, and the birth in us of the Father's love for his only
Son, and for all Christ's scattered brothers.
It is still a difficult enterprise. Hate is allowed to test the victory
in us, for h u m a n love takes time. The building blocks of our city are
recalcitrant and hard, and at the same time exposed to the eroding
elements of a humanism that insists it is its own, and not the gift
of the risen Lord's humanity. There will be, for many, the constant
temptation to believe that there is nothing here worth doing, except
to be tempted and to wait. It remains true, as Paul insists, that we are
diminished by our struggle and our pain; 1 but the Christ in us
grows great by it. Our love of Christ, of our fellow men, and of our
world, will be death of us. T h a t is God's own truth, and our w a y
to life: salvation in and through suffering, loneliness, and death.
It was a broken body in the tomb that marked the moment a n d
occasion when a young man strode across the sunrise. Since then,
salvation has always been in the present moment, and will be as
long as the Father loves his son, the Son of Man, our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ, and in him all his brothers, who are now also
sons.
Cf2 Cor 5, 16.
WE REJOICE IN
OUR SUFFERINGS
By J O S E P H B L E N K I N S O P P
AN', as Eliphaz remarked to Job, 'is born to trouble as
the sparks fly upwards'? He cannot avoid it even by
remaining completely immobile. He has to put up with
it, but if he is a religious man he can hardly avoid reflecting on why God permits it, especially when its incidence is so often
apparently casual and arbitrary. For most of the Old Testament
suffering is regarded as a passivity, with the emphasis on how the
faithful man is to integrate it into his world of inner conviction and
cope with it. There was the so-called 'classical' doctrine on suffering
according to which its infliction is part of God's moral government
of the world, by which he punished sinners and, at the same time,
'encourages the others'. ' M a n and boy', says the psalmist, 'I have
never seen the righteous abandoned nor his descendants having to
beg for their bread'. ~ Maybe he hadn't, but this would not have
been everyone's experience, and as we get further into the Old
Testament we can see this view wearing progressively thinner.
More consistent was the idea that suffering is the lot of all, just and
unjust indifferently, but that the just man, by the very fact of his
being just, would have the strength of spirit to survive rather than
to curse God and die.
Perhaps the most typical jewish contribution to this attempt to
Cope with suffering by giving it some intelligibility is the view that
suffering is God's way of educating his people. It is the road away
from unreality and inauthentic living. The hungering and thirsting
in the desert was to lead them to see what man lives by. Suffering is
not directly willed by God, but he allows it in order that we may
grow strong, as he left the nations in the land of promise for the
sake of his people. But even here, suffering is something that merely
happens to people; it is not seen as having a positive role.
With the prophetxc mission and the opposition which it stirred up,
we find a different situation. Here suffering takes on a definite form
M
a J o b 5, 7"
2
Ps37,95.
WE
REJOICE
IN
OUR
SUFFERINGS
37
and features. The clearest case of this is the career of Jeremiahi
commissioned to 'pluck up and break down, destroy and overthrow'? Maybe thinking over the place of suffering in Jeremiah's
mission played a part in preparing for the isaian Servant's mission,
which is carried out not in spite of or merely accompanied by
suffering, but by means of it. Here we find the roots not just of the
peculiar jewish mystique of suffering but the christian paradox of
fulfilment through suffering, life through death and rejoicing in
suffering. And this brings us to Paul.
Paul, in the first place, remains true to the biblical insight of
suffering as essential towards authentic living. He lays down the
pattern in his Letter to the Romans: 'suffering produces endurance,
endurance produces character and character produces hope'. ~ This
endurance, hypomone, 3 is, literally, the quality of a man who remains
unmoving and silent beneath the lash. It is a positive endurance of
life in the world with all the contrarieties which it brings, a refusal
to complain or to seek easy options. The man who, over a long period
has shown this quality of positive endurance, can be said to be approved, dokimos, like precious metal tried and purified in the crucible.
We should note here that Paul does not provide his christians with
theological alibis for suffering. There is no short cut. The sufferings
of life in the world, life as body, are not regarded as illusory, though
he will go_on to say later that they are not worthy to be compared to
the glory that shall be revealed in us. * They are not sidestepped by
some process of sublimation. Life as it is has to be gone through and
not around, lived out, sweated out. It is only when he has reached
the stage of approval as a m a n 5 that the theological virtue of hope is
mentioned. There is, moreover, no discontinuity between the real,
lived-out experience and the part of God: ' . . . character produces
hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been
poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit which has been
given to us'. 6
In common with Old Testament prophetic figures like Jeremiah,
Paul speaks almost always of suffering within the context of his
missionary vocation. The story told in Acts speaks for itself. If we
are told that it was an integral part of missionary preaching to the
churches of the first hour that 'through many tribulations we must
1
3
4
G
Jer I, Io.
~ Rom5,3-4.
CfWalsh,James, 'The Patience of Christ', The Way, V o l 5 October 1965, p 293 note I.
R o m 8, 12 ft.
5 The R S V uses here the word character. R o m 5, 4R o m 5, 5.
38
WE
REJOICE
IN
OUR
SUFFERINGS
enter the kingdom of God',l this is certainly a reflexion of experience
and, in fact, comes immediately after we read of Paul being stoned
and left for dead at Lystra. A little later, in the address on the
seashore at Miletus, we read how 'the holy Spirit testifies to me in
every city (through prophets like Agabus) that imprisonment and
afflictions await me'. ~ The catalogue of sufferings enumerated in
Paul's well-known historia calamitatum 3 deals with the mission, and
is set in a context which has to do with establishing his authentic
apostolic status. It is not just the constant physical hardship involved
but 'the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches'.~
The implication is obvious. For the apostle, suffering is inescapable:
since he, like Jeremiah, is called to witness to a strange and, for many,
unwelcome new presence in the world, he too is commissioned to
'pluck up and break down, destroy and overthrow'. The words of
Jesus in the eschatological discourse of greek Matthew are, as is
generally recognized, the reflexion of the missionary experience, a
partial chronicle of which is found in Acts: 'they will deliver you up
to tribulation and put you to death; and you will be hated by all
nations for m y name's sake'. 5 And more specifically: 'they will
deliver you up to councils and you will be beaten in synagogues'. ~
This is precisely what happened to the apostles who were imprisoned
and beaten and who, we are told, 'left the presence of the council
rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for
the Name'. 7 Here the suffering is not only borne positively, endured,
but rejoiced in. The suffering is part of the enduring witness which issues in the total witness of martyrdom, and martyrdom was the lot
of all the apostles, as it was of Paul.
The pattern of apostolic suffering was set, as we saw, in the first
missionary tour. It is repeated in the second during which Paul was
almost lynched at Philippi, then beaten and imprisoned. It is part of
the christian paradox of suffering with joy that we find the prisoners
praying and singing hymns during that long dark and uncomfortable
night in a strange town. 8 Signed with the mark of the cross and sealed
with the Spirit, they took suffering to be the sign of apostolic
authenticity and therefore could rejoice. We should note, moreover,
how this also excluded any slightest sign of the self-pity which
suffering often induces. On the contrary, Paul preserved the ability
to react vigorously by demanding an apology for the indignity
a
A c t s 14, 22.
Mt24,9.
0" A c t s 20, 23.
G M t Io, I 7.
3 2 Cor I I-I2.
~ Acts 5 , 4 I-
4
8
2 C o r I I, 28.
Actsx6,~5.
w E REJOICE IN OUR SUFFERINGS
39
inflicted on a roman citizen and gave an example to all persecuted
minorities by continuing to speak out ' . . . though we had already
suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we
had confidence in our God to speak out the gospel to you in the face
of great opposition'.l
It was no accident that the main burden of Paul's preaching to
the thessalonians was the necessity of suffering for Christ and the
christian, 2 since this church had received the Word 'in much
affliction, with joy inspired by the holy Spirit 's and had been instructed from the start on the role of suffering in the building up of
the christian life. For them, as for the first apostles and the 'churches
of God which are i n J u d a e a ' , suffering was the mark of those chosen
by God, the sign of approval, t The consistency of Paul's thinking
can be seen in the recurrence, throughout the two letters, of vocabulary elsewhere commonly used in this context, especially the pattern:
suffering - endurance - approval - hope. This will remain throughout, but experience will fill out the words with an ever increasing
depth of meaning.
In the next stage, at Athens, it seems that Paul experienced a new
form of suffering, that of disillusionment, coming to terms with one's
own limitations. His first over-optimistic assessment of the apostolic
mission to the gentiles received a hard knock, and he went on to
Corinth a bitterly disappointed man. We can assess his state of
mind on arrival from the opening chapter of his first letter; 5 though
this has no doubt been coloured by the even deeper inner darkness
in which he was plunged for some time during his three-year mission
at Ephesus. It was during this time that the correspondence to the
corinthian church was written: 'we do not want you to be ignorant,
brethren, of the affliction we experienced in Asia; for we were so
utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself. Why, we
had received the sentence of death; but that was to make us rely not
on ourselves but on God who raises the dead'. * For a man of Paul's
temperament, this feeling of absolute impotence, of being entirely
unable to cope with a situation, must have been particularly excruciating. The same no doubt for the inner torment, the 'thorn in the
flesh', which afflicted him for so long and from which he sought in
vain to be freed. ~ From this kind of situation which makes or breaks,
and to which no serious and mature person is immune, there is only
I Thess2,2.
I C o r I.
2 Acts I 7 , 3 .
6 2Cor 1,8-9.
~ I T h e s s I , 6.
T 2 C o r i o , 7.
*
IThessI,
4;2,4.
4°
WE
REJOICE
IN OUR SUFFERINGS
one issue - at least for the christian: 'my grace is sufficient for you,
for my power is made perfect in weakness'. This is in the pattern of
him who was crucified in weakness but lives by the power of God.
O f Paul's almost daily consorting with death during the stay in
Jerusalem after the three missionary tours we hear at length from
Luke, who was with him for part of the time. This writer's habit of
describing vividly and at length selected key-scenes in the story, and
passing rapidly over the intervals, must not lead us to forget the
two years spent in prison at Caesarea, only fleetingly referred to in a
subordinate clause. 1 Two years is a long time for a man with Paul's
sense of urgency. Then the voyage, shipwreck, contrarieties in Rome
and another two years of house arrest, at which point Luke's story
ends. If the pastoral letters are from his hand, or even reflect faithfully his condition during the last years, we see that he suffered
what Simone Well described as the only evil - absence, in this case,
the absence of friends, a sense of isolation and abandonment:
'Demas in love with the present world has deserted m e . . . Crescens
has g o n e . . . Luke alone is with me'. ~ H e may well have died almost
alone.
Examined from this point of view, therefore, Paul's life is in line
with that of Jeremiah, or any of the other prophets, whose mission
was accomplished only at the cost of a mounting experience of
suffering. But Paul, in the text from which we began, goes beyond
what any of the prophets could claim when he asserts that he and all
christians rejoice in their sufferings. The word which he uses here
really means to boast, a point which has to be made in that Paul
began in this letter with the purpose of removing any human ground
for boasting, since all are under the power of sin. 3 No one can achieve
the end of existence, which is to share in the glory of God ;4 this has
been made possible only through what God has done in Christ. By
entering into a faith-relationship with Christ in his great death-tolife act, this possibility can be actualized in a man's life; but it has
to be translated into the hard currency of real experience, making
the right decisions, endurance issuing in approval or character. This
provides the mainspring for a new forward-movement, the direction
or sense of which is the christian hope. This is not just an illusion,
since 'God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the
holy Spirit which has been given to us'. At the same time, hope is not
1
4
A c t s 24, 27R o m 5, 2.
2
2Tim4,
IO.
3
Rom3,9;3,
I9;2,27.
WE REJOICE IN OUR SUFFERINGS
4I
certainty, since the future depends on our decisions in the face of
emerging circumstances. We can make the wrong choices, we can
sin.
The substantive that Paul uses when he speaks of boasting in his
sufferings is tMipsis, which means literally 'a being crushed', as if by
a great weight. This corresponds to what was in effect a technical
term in the vocabulary of contemporary jewish apocalyptic. In these
apocalyptic milieux, it was often believed that a period of oppression and suffering would precede the new age of the Messiah. This
transitional period would witness at the same time the death throes
of the 'present age', dominated by evil forces, and the birth pangs of
'the age to come'. This last metaphor goes back perhaps to Micah,
who speaks of Zion as a mother seized by pangs in her labour of
giving birth to the Messiah. 1 It is, at any rate, found frequently in
the Old Testament and was familiar at the time of Paul. It is explicit
in the saying of the johannine Christ, about the disciples weeping
and lamenting while the world rejoices: 'when a woman is in travail
she has sorrow because her hour is come; but when she is delivered
of the child she no longer remembers the anguish for joy that a child
is born into the world'. ~ The same way of thinking is implicit in what
Paul says about their present afflictions to the christians of Salonika
among whom the parousiac hope was particularly strong. They had
received the word 'in much affliction', but had already been told
that this was necessary if the new life was to be born in them.
Timothy had been sent specially to remind them 'that no one be
moved by these afflictions. You yourselves know that this is to be
our lot '8 - understood in the present crucial passage of salvation
history. In the second letter their present afflictions are even more
explicitly associated with the expectation of the Lord's perhaps
imminent parousia. 4 We find a parallel case with the christians
addressed in the Epistle to the Hebrews, who had received the gift
of faith amid much suffering, including the loss of their temporal
goods, and had to be reminded that this period is transitional and
must be endured if the end is to be reached. 5
Paul's way of coming to terms with his own sufferings was possible
only within this eschatological, forward-looking perspective. While
this is mostly clearly attached to the purely temporal aspect of the
parousia expectation in the earlier correspondence, we can trace, as
* Mic 4:, 9-xo.
2 Thess I, 5-Io.
2 Jn I6, 2o-=I.
5 Heb *% 3e-36.
8 * Thess 3, I-6.
42
W E REJOICE IN OUR SUFFERINGS
time went on, a gradual detachment from this limiting point of view.
This came about in the first place with the realization of the magnitude of the missionary task he had set himself. The fulfilment of
God's plan, involving the bringing together in a new family both
those who were near (the jews) and those who were far (the gentiles),
was still far from complete. But this did not prevent him from seeing
the sufferings involved in the apostolate as part of the preparation
for the in-breaking kingdom, as God's authenticating mark and the
assurance that some day he would show his hand. It is precisely for
this reason that he can rejoice or boast of his sufferings, as he does in
the well-known autobiographical passage referred to earlier:
'What I am saying I say not with the Lord's authority but as a fool,
in this boasting c o n f i d e n c e . . . Whatever anyone dares to boast o f I am speaking as a fool - I also dare to boast o f . . . I must boast;
there is nothing to be gained by it, but I will go o n . . / 1
This rejoicing, even boasting in suffering, is the strange and eccentric element in the christian attitude. For many it can hardly fail
also to be one of the most repellent, and when we remember some
forms this attitude has taken in christian history, there must be some
justification for this. An especially clear case is Calvin, for whom
la souffrance est meiUeure que la joie ; and the one-sided calvinist teaching has seeped through into the lives of thousands of people, as
widely differing as van Gogh brought up in an avid calvinist atmosphere, and Pascal, who believed that sickness was the natural state
of the christian. For Paul, on the contrary, the christian does not
just suffer, both in his general humanity and in the particularity of
his being a christian; he rejoices in his sufferings. When we suffer
and no longer know why, when we suffer without rejoicing, then
we are outside of the genuine christian experience. That is the simple
test. At the same time, this shows up all other explanations of human
suffering as insufficient - whether we speak of suffering helping us
towards approaching others in sympathy, or building up our own
character, or contributing to the building up of the cosmos which,
as Teilhard de Chardin has reminded us, involves many failures and
casualties; though this last calls for a degree of faith in the cosmic
process which, one suspects, only very few are capable of.
In itself, however, rejoicing i n one's sufferings might be just
another version of the banal injunction to grin and bear it. W h a t
Paul shows us through his correspondence, which is the mirror of
1
2 Cor
II--I~.
w E R]~JOlCE IN OUR SUFFERINGS
43
the high period of his mission, is how this rejoicing is possible. The
answer is simply that the christian suffers in union with Christ. Not
just in the sense that Christ, as the supreme artist of living - the
phrase is van Gogh's - gives us an example which we are called on
to follow; that above all in Gethsemane and on Calvary he showed
us how to face 'the double agony' of suffering and death which is the
lot of all of us. This is already of tremendous significance for us today,
as it was for Paul's catechumens 'before whose eyes Jesus Christ was
portrayed as crucified' ;1 but Paul goes beyond this. By his baptism,
the christian is immersed in the redemptive death-to-life of Jesus; he
is con-crucified with him. 2 The sufferings and death of Jesus did not
just happen to him, but formed a positive act accepted in advance
and thereby became an event. This acceptance, this event-character,
is expressed by speaking of Christ's obedience - 'he learned obedience through what he suffered'. 3 But this loving act of submission
is not simply the archetype of the redemptive process establishing
the christian pattern of existence - through death to life. O u t of the
baptismal faith-relationship of the community with Christ a new
and deep level of communication is created. This implies also a
koinonia in suffering which both links together the sufferings of the
individual christian with those of Christ and binds the sufferings of
the whole body together. Paul therefore can declare that he shares
abundantly in Christ's sufferings during his mission, and goes on at
once to say:
If we are afflicted it is for your comfort and salvation; and if
we are comforted it is for your comfort, which you experience
when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.
O u r hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share
in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. 4
This implies that the christian suffers not so much with Christ as in
Christ, that he has to appropriate his sufferings in the suffering
Christ and thus reproduce on the hard-grain material of concrete
existence in this kind of world the pattern of Christ's death. The
key-phrase here comes from Paul, writing in prison to the philipPlans: ' . . . that I may know him and the power of his resurrection,
and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that if
possible I may attain to the resurrection from the dead'. 5
t
Gal3,
4
~ Cor 1,5-7.
I.
~- R o m 6 , 3 .
~
P h i l 3, x o - i t .
3
Heb5,8.
44
WE REJOICE IN OUR SUFFERINGS
This is the constant point of reference for Paul in bearing the
crushing burden of the mission. The union between Paul and Christ
is so intimate that, when Paul suffers, the sufferings of Christ are
renewed as a present reality. This truth, so often presented to us
homiletically in a banal way, is in itself so strange that he can express it in its pure state, its native intensity, only by a sort of dislocation of language. He speaks of a con-crucifixion, of carrying about
in one's body the dying of Jesus, of making up what is lacking in
Christ's sufferings for the Body which is the Church, of the sufferings of Christ overflowing into the christian. Linked with this is the
equally new and strange truth that suffering, the most acute form
of which is isolation, can become, if experienced within the new
Christ-reality, intercommunicable and interavailable. There is
hardly any letter of Paul in which he does not speak of himself
sharing in the sufferings of his readers or of them in his. There is
therefore no abstract solution to suffering as a problem, only an
experience we are invited to share. The experience of the risen Lord
is at the root of the christian mission or apostolate, and the christian
life in general. If this experience is a delusion, then the whole thing
falls through and we are left to cope with the pain i n our own life
in isolation, as well as we can. If however Christ is risen, there is this
great possibility of which Paul speaks to the philippians, that we
may attain the resurrection from the dead. But if we do, it will only
be at the price of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his
death.
S U F F E R I N G AND DEATH:
Q U E S T I O N AND ANSWER
By LADISLAUS
BOROS
HE PROBLEM of h u m a n suffering can be the greatest
temptation of our faith and of our christian existence.
H o w can God allow so much suffering? H o w can he look
upon all the horror, injustice and ill-will that we experience
W h y must his friends suffer just as his enemies do? W h y does he
not make manifest his almighty power? W h y does he not help us
when we feel the need for his help most keenly ? Events take their
course as if there were no God, as if our imploring prayer remained
unheard. Gloom is not dissipated, the darkness of destiny is not
dispelled, the helpless receive no lasting consolation. Often we have
to look on helpless, while human beings, our friends and our neighbours, whom we love tenderly and for whom we pray in faith, are
cast about on a sea of anguish and despair. What sort of God is it
that permits all this and never intervenes? So the gnawing doubts
multiply and undermine our certainty. They can be so strong that
the whole of our faith totters, so that it seems we would be fools to go
on believing. The victory of faith often consists in maintaining an
'even so' of fidelity in despair, an 'in spite of' in the most bitter
experience.
What, then, is the meaning of pain and death? Who flung me
into this painful world ? Why was I compelled to live ? Why did no
one consult me about it? Why should I, who bear within myself
an immortal spirit, why should I be tied to a body, to that which is
transient, which is doomed to decay? And why should everything,
in the end, be taken from me: my life, my friends, everything that I
have built up and worked for with so much effort? W h y must I go
through illness and suffering, through death and through everything that goes with death, in order to reach immortality? Who
answers these questions? It is Jesus Christ, who said of himself: 'I
am the first and the last, the living one. I was dead, but now I live
for all eternity. I hold in my hands the key to death and to life
hereafter'. It is he who can help us to find an answer to all these
torturing questions, and to win through from our darkness to his
T
46
S U F F E R I N G AND D E A T H : QUESTION AND A N S W E R
light, so that from our despair we may pass over into his joy.
This word joy expresses the inner attitude with which a christian
should approach every problem of his life, including therefore that
of pain. J o y is tile ultimate yardstick in christian experience. Depression - and we are thinking not so much of what happens on the
surface but in the depths of our existence - is unchristian: it contradicts the spirit of tile Lord. Reflection on the darker side of human
life, on sickness, pain and death, ought to lead us to joy: otherwise
it is not christian meditation. J o y happens when human existence
stands entirely open to Christ: he, and only he, can bring light into
our darkness. To seek christian joy cannot mean closing our eyes to
h u m a n needs, or turning away our gaze from human darkness, but
rather to experience in its depths the contradiction of pain, and to
expose it to the light of the Lord.
Every reflection on pain and death must be shot through with
this vital truth: after the resurrection of Christ the destiny of the
world is already decided: we are moving heavenwards. Amidst all
the realities of our provisional world, what is definitive and ultimate
is already in process. What we seek cannot end in emptiness; nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. SoJohnwillsayinsistently: 'God is greater than our heart'. And Paul gives an answer to all
our hopes which goes beyond even the carefully calculated dreams
of humanity: 'When once all things are subject to Christ then will
the son be with God, so that God may be all in a11'. In such a world
there is no reason for despair or cowardice. God wants to see joyous,
renewed, useful souls, souls relieved of anxiety. The christian is to be
a witness to joy in our joyless and pain-ridden world.
The ultimate questions of life, and certainly questions about sickness, pain and death are amongst these, must be answered from the
basic insights of our faith, otherwise the answers will be superficial
or simply false. Revelation gives us a basic answer to the why of
suffering and death: 'it was not always so', and, 'it will not always
be so'. Once mankind lived in a state of wholeness, incapable of
suffering, in a state of immortality, in paradise. And mankind will
once again, in the state of eternal beatitude, achieve this wholeness,
in possession of knowledge, incapable of suffering, and will live immortally, in heaven. We come from paradise and we are going
towards heaven. What stands in between, the whole painful life of
humanity, is therefore simply a transition, an episode of unhappiness in a world which is made for happiness.
In the beginning, man - that is to say, man as he was originally
SUFFERING AND DEATH:
QUESTION AND ANSWER
47
planned and made by God - was already whole, in possession of
knowledge, incapable of suffering and death. He was living in a
world that was 'other'. How was his world 'other'? It was certainly
a very threatening, hard and pitiless world; for man in the beginning
had not yet learned to master it. And yet this man lived in a world
that was 'other'.
What do we mean here by world? T h a t which has two elements:
the things and events which surround us, and an inner attitude, the
state of man's consciousness. 'World' is not a reality which is ready
made. It 'happens' not only out of objective situations but also out
of our subjective attitude to them. Today we experience this 'world'
only in love and in friendship. A man who loves experiences the
world that is 'other'. He discovers new depths and new meanings in
the world. T h a t was how it was in the state which we call paradise.
Paradise was not another world; it was a world experienced in another way. We find the central moment o f paradise in the third
chapter of Genesis: God walked with man in the cool of the evening;
they were in intimate conversation; they walked together hand in
hand. This means that man was 'with God'; the Lord was close to
him. Between man and his creator was an 'experienced' immediacy.
God was a part of this man's experience; everywhere he felt God to
be near at hand. T h a t was the meaning of paradise; it was the same
world in which We live, and in some ways a more threatening world.
Yet it was another world, because it was experienced by m a n in
another way, experienced in the light of God. It follows that man in
paradise was whole. He possessed, as the theologians say, the donum
integritatis: that is to say, he was not inwardly divided, not torn
between desire and the realization of desire. O f course he knew
nostalgia. He too was not always able to fulfil his dreams. But, as he
held the hand of God, he sensed fulfilment close to him. He knew,
from his inward experience, that all nostalgia, all wishes and dreams,
have their fulfilment. In this way man in paradise was whole: filled
with desires, but sensing the fulfilment of his desires to be close at
hand.
Paradise was also a state of complete knowledge - the donurn
sdentiae. This does not mean that man knew a great deal quantitatively. The intellectual mastery of our modern technological world
would have confused him. Yet qualitatively he knew much more
than we do. The very little that he knew he received from the deepest
ground, the very spring of all being. His world was transparent,
'God-lucid': it was a veil revealing God.
48
SUFFERING AND D E A T H :
QUESTION AND ANSWER
Paradise was also a state of incapacity for suffering - donum impassibilitatis. This does not mean that man in paradise was without
experience of pain. Pain is a signal which brings to man's consciousness an experience of the elements of the world that are a threat to
his well-being. A man without any experience of pain could not have
survived in the world. But when a man constantly lives in immediate
contact with God, when he is wholly directed to the other, to God,
pain cannot get out of proportion in him, it cannot take possession
of his whole being; in other words, it cannot become suffering.
Today we see an image of this, in love. A lover can feel pain, be
troubled in soul and physically threatened; but if he loves, - that is
if he is accepted, with his whole being, in the beloved, then he bears
his happiness with him, a happiness which no suffering can touch.
Finally, paradise was a state of immortality - donum immortalitatis.
This does not mean that his biological condition was permanent,
without change. Biological life presupposes self-development. But
this development and refinement is such that it eventually reaches a
state of fragility. And so, as life unfolds and is 'lived out', it prepares
its own destruction: it moves towards death. But this death would
have occurred in the state of lived immediacy with God, without
separation or rending apart. Through the power of God which was
in him, man would have passed immediately into the state of
perfection, into tile state of resurrection, and therefore been 'drawn
over' into heaven. He would have experienced a dying, an agony,
but not death, not the break-up of his own being. His lived immediacy
to God would have produced in him an immediacy to heaven, to
eternal life.
Such was h u m a n life as it was planned and created by God: not
encapsulated in itself, but wholly drawn towards the holy, towards
the experience of God. No matter how primitive, ignorant, menaced
and liable to die this man might have been, he was perfect. Paradise
was therefore a state (and whether it lasted a long time or only a
moment is of no importance here) of tranquillity, of knowing, of
unthreatened and fully lived being in a restless, opaque world given
over to death. This life does not exist any more. Somewhere, sometime, this paradise was destroyed; and we were given over to inner
conflicts, to ignorance, to pain and to death. Who brought about
this state of affairs? Certainly not God. He never breaks off any
friendship. In some way or other - we cannot say how and when man told him: 'I will live with you no more'. This 'no more' destroyed what was most beautiful and most alive in this m a n - his
SUFFERING AND D E A T H :
QUESTION AND ANSWER
49
immediate relationship to God; and so it destroyed man himself.
H e could no longer experience God immediately; so that all his
desires and dreams were empty; he gave himself over to ignorance;
and thus pain grew in him and overflowed his whole being and
became suffering: and thus death came out of dying.
The wonder is that God did not leave the matter there. H e did not
abandon man. He 'permitted', it is true, that the irruption of pain
should no longer be halted in us. In:his despair (it is hard to find
another word) he took suffering upon himself and came down into
our death. As man went away from him, he came nearer to man.
The whole history of humanity consists in the approach of God to
us, ever nearer and nearer, and in God's gift of a new immediacy
with himself: he himself became man in order to bring back the
whole of man. He took upon himself fragile being, our threatened
state, our creaturely ignorance, our pain and our death. Since man
no longer wished to be with God, God became man, so that he could
be with man.
We do not know why he did this. Love does not have to provide
reasons; it gives itself without question. That is why it is love; and
God is love. It is not simply that he loves: rather his whole being
consists in love. He loves and he does nothing else but love. To love
and to be, in him, are one. He would cease to be (which is an impossible, indeed a meaningless supposition) if he no longer loved. By
becoming man in Christ, God brought to completion the second act
of creation. H e makes heaven possible for us again. So creation is
not yet perfected. It is still in process of being perfected. It will end
only when man abandons himself again to the immediacy of God,
when he enters once again paradise, which from now on is called
heaven.
To be able to understand our life, we must know, in the sense of
inwardly experiencing, and also make credible for others, that
human life is directed to heaven. The world will be perfected only
when man enters heaven. We are not yet alive in the proper sense
of the word. Our life is only beginning, a becoming, a growing towards heaven. Illness, suffering and death belong to this state of
transition. We know today that the cosmos is the product of an
evolution that has been going on for millions of years. It evolved
from its original state towards life; and life is perfected as man's
mind is formed, and as this mind takes possession of itself in its
recognition of God and in its giving of itself to him in love. Union
with God draws the whole cosmos towards eternal fulfilment. This
5°
SUFFERING AND D E A T H :
QUESTION AND ANSWER
fulfilment is, in the end, a definitive, God-transparent cosmos:
heaven. God created the world by lending it the power to rise
towards him throughout its long development over thousands of
years. The world is pointing to heaven. The end is the true beginning.
According to the original plan of creation, the world should have
passed over from paradise to heaven without any destruction, suffering or death. As things are now, because Christ became man and
conquered death, and opened the way to heaven once more, the
world moves infallibly and indubitably towards heaven.
But what is heaven? We do not know precisely. In the bible this
radical fulfilment is referred to as 'the new heaven and the new
earth'. J o h n describes this new world in his apocalypse, his 'secret
revelation'. He speaks of oceans of glass, of streets made of gold and
crystal, of doors fashioned of rare pearls, of walls built of glowing
precious stones. The dominant motif in this description is the sense
of power, of the humanly unattainable. Paul, too, stresses this
'otherness' of heaven: 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it
entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for
those who love him'. And yet heaven is already very close to us.
With the resurrection and ascension of Christ, heaven has already
broken in upon our world. The powers of the world to come have
already taken possession of us. Christianity considers the resurrection of Christ not simply as the private destiny of our Lord, but at
the same time as the first sign that everything in our world has already been transformed radically, decisively, truly. The Easter
event is not an isolated and limited fact in the history of salvation,
but the sacred destiny of the whole world. Through his resurrection,
Christ has spoken his effective and creative word upon the whole
universe. It has already begun: 'See, I make all things new'. Though
heaven is far from us, it is also close to us, radically related to us. The
christian lives in this tension. He is already in some sense in heaven,
but in a heaven which is not yet constituted fully. In a similar way,
the disciples on the road to Emmaus experienced the reality of the
risen Lord. Jesus joined the two disciples who had left the brethren
gathered in the upper room. For a long time he went along with
them and spoke with them. But they did not recognize him. The
Lord always appeared in this way after his resurrection, discreetly,
as a hungry man, as a gardener, as a traveller, as a man on the shore
of the lake. It is in this way that heaven is close to us. It appears
unobstrusi~ely; ~ve catch its reflection, as in a mirror.
Christ promised to everyone a share in his own happiness in
SUFFERING AND DEATH:
QUESTION AND ANSWER
51
heaven. H e promised what people most needed: eternal water to the
samaritan woman, bread of eternal life to the people of Capharnaum,
an abundant catch to the fishermen, to the shepherds, large flocks
and pastures ever green, precious pearls to merchants; and to all of
us an eternal banquet, a constant marriage celebration - which is a
symbol of unending happiness in 'possession' of the person we most
cherish in our life.
It follows that heaven is life lived intensively and completely. Not
a world of ideas, grandiose but bloodless and dehydrated: but rather
the fulness, the elevation of our sensible perceptions to eternity, in
which they can grasp God as a gift. In heaven the ineffable gift for
which the Church prays will come to pass: aecende lumen sensibus,
as we sing in the Veni Creator. The light of God will overflow in all
our senses. What the mystics and all deeply religious men have
experienced in innumerable mirrorings wiI1 come to pass: God will
be seen, heard, tasted and enjoyed by us. Thus in heaven everything
that is intellectual will be in the realm of the sensible, and everything that is sensible will be in the realm of the intellectual - including God himself. And man will indweU in the whole of reality, in a
world made whole.
Heaven, then, is the definitive, ensconced, indestructible closeness
of God, a participation in God. O u r being can never full grasp or
plumb the infinite depths of God's being. Hence, even this fulfilment
is constantly a new beginning, a movement towards still greater
fulfilment. Heaven must be understood essentially as a boundless
dynamism. The fulfilment itself will so 'expand' our souls, that in the
next moment they can be filled still more by the being of God. We
are therefore eternal seekers after God. God remains ever greater
than our limited being. A God that we had finally 'got hold of' would
be no God. Throughout our earthly life we seek God in order to find
him. In eternal blessedness, even after we have found him, we continue to seek him. Here, he is hidden, so that man may seek after
him, in order to find him. And he is incommensurable, so that we
have to seek him even after we have found him. Eternity, then, will
be a constant moving towards God. In heaven everything static is
turned into a boundless, progressive, advancing movement towards
God. Fulfillment is eternal transformation, a state of ceaseless and
uninterrupted life.
Pain, sickness and death must be considered in this context. These
are the real perspectives of h u m a n fife. We are not forever given
over to suffering. Our inner distress~ our inner dissolution do not
52
SUFFERING
AND
DEATH:
QUESTION
AND ANSWER
last forever. We are moving towards heaven. The suffering and need
which afflict us here are provisional: in the deepest and last analysis
unimportant. And y e t it is still our task to protect those whom we
love (and we have the duty to love as many men as possible) from
all that depresses them and makes them suffer: that is, to make easier
for them the way to their final happiness, to heaven.
We are all committed to oppose suffering. That is the first demand
of the christian's love of his neighbour. As long as it is possible, the
christian will offer every consolation; as long as it is possible, we
must fight with God against evil. Our first task is service of the
suffering brethren, for christian existence is built upon our neighbour. As a christian I have to help my abandoned and suffering
brothers, and in that I am a christian. A Christianity which is not
concerned with the urgent task of love of the poor and the abandoned is empty chatter. The didactic point of the cure of the paralytic
at the pool of Bethsaida, is that he had nobody to help h i m ?
It is the most terrible experience of a human life when a person
has to say: 'I have nobody'. As long as there is anyone in my environment, among the people who are accessible to me, who has to
say 'I have nobody', then I am no christian. M y eternal happiness
depends on understanding Jesus' parable of the judgment: 'Come
you blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom which is prepared
for you from the beginning of the world. For I was hungry and you
gave me to eat'. ~ This is not symbolic language. It must be understood in all its hard truth. It is true that spiritual need, inner imprisonment and hunger of soul, are also hard realities. Somebody who
has never once in his life given something to eat to someone who is
hungry, or drink to someone who is thirsty, or never harboured a
stranger, clothed someone who was naked, visited the sick, or
consoled a prisoner, will not come into heaven, and so is not inwardly a christian; he has understood nothing of christianity. He has
missed its reality. A man becomes a christian not first of all because
he finds ecstasy in his prayer, not because he knows a great deal
about laws and prescriptions, but through the selfless service of his
abandoned brethren in everyday life: of those who are saying: 'I
have nobody'. Whoever goes out and helps a poor man, or even
simply a man who feels abandoned, will one day hear the word of
Christ: 'You are blessed. I have prepared for you a kingdom from
the beginning of the world. You have been a christian'.
1 J n 5 , I-9.
~ M t 25, 35.
SUFFERING
AND DEATH : QUESTION
AND ANSWER
53
But who is m y neighbour? When Christ was asked this question
he replied, not by any abstract working out of the concept of neighbour, but by telling the story of the good samaritan. The essential
point of this story is that my neighbour is the one who has only me
to help him. The whole attitude of the christian is summed up in
that: do what no one else will do in your place; be ready; develop
an openness of heart; be open to the sufferings of others. If you have
this attitude, then one day you will meet the m a n who has nobody,
apart from you; and then you must take him upon yourself; stay with
him, not pass by, tend him. It is almost impossible to bring out in a
modern language all the shades of meaning in the story of the good
samaritan. This is especially true of the point which concerns us here.
In the first two cases, those of the priest and the Levite, the text says:
'he saw him and passed by'. According to the greek text it should
rather be: 'he saw him, halted for a moment without knowing what
to do, and then went on'. Christian life concerns itself especially
with this moment of hesitation. I have to develop in myself an inner
readiness to overcome this moment of hesitation, when specious
reasons occur spontaneously, to let me off lightly. There is also the
fear: 'if you bend down over this man, you will have to share in his
suffering; but that will be very wearisome. It is better to pass by'.
Our eternal destiny can be decided in this decision to 'pass by'.
It is at this point, of' course, that we can b e ~ n to penetrate the
invincible mystery of suffering, as we come more closely to conform
ourselves with the compassionate love of the Christ who fights evil
with all his strength. In sharing his fife, I share this struggle: as a
christian I may not give up the strnggle before I have tried every
possibility. Otherwise, the christian religion would indeed be an
opium for the people: it would collapse under the weight of the
enormous problem of suffering. It is one of the greatest scandals in
the history of christendom that repeatedly christian love of the
neighbour was not strong enough to cry out against exploitation the situation in which men were shackled in poverty and misery
by other men.
God calls us to help him in the fight against evil. He has not
spirited away pain and suffering from our lives. The christian
sui:i~rs, is hungry, struggles, like all other men. But hunger, suffering,
struggle and death for him should have another sense. They should
give him a chance to pass through his suffering to God, through the
darkness into light.
To bear pain and illness patiently belongs to the genuinely
54
SUFFERING AND DEATH: ~UESTION AND ANSWER
christian task of transforming darkness into light. Through the
cross came the decisive choice for mankind. Through the suffering
Christ endured there, the world received its spiritual transformation.
I f we want to transform the world into heaven, then we must take
upon ourselves the suffering, the need and the care of men. The
christian vocation is to suffer; and, at the same time, to be convinced
that we are moving toward eternal happiness. In this way the life
of the christian is a life of joy; and we have an answer to our most
desperate need. Our bodily illness, our creaturely suffering, do not
represent for us a threat so much as a task. Physical pain borne in a
christian way diminishes the amount of suffering in our world.
When we take the suffering upon ourselves, we save others from
disaster. We bring heaven nearer and we begin to transform our
lost paradise.
The same principle is to be applied to interior suffering as to
physical pain: we are called to take h u m a n need upon ourselves,
so that it gradually diminishes and disappears, until our world is
transformed into heaven. This is the pattern Christ set in healing
the man who was deaf and dumb. 1 Having tended to his bodily
needs, he showed him a way out of spiritual suffering. He said
to him: 'Be opened'. This is the first and fundamental answer
of Christ to our spiritual need: 'Break out of the narrow circle of
your self-isolation and your egoism and begin to say something good
to your fellow men. It does not matter how clumsily or inadequately
you do it; if you would be a man, live outside yourself and begin to
listen to others. This means to be with them without counting the
cost, to be there for them: what you suffer from most of all is that
you are a stranger in the world of your fellow men. Open yourself.
You will not lose anything. You will begin to be and only begin to
be as you open yourselves for others, as you lose yourself for others;
free yourself from yourself'. This is the essential answer of Christ
to our h u m a n suffering. We suffer from the fact that we are not
fulfilled. Christ says to us: 'The other is your fulfilment, go towards
him, open yourself'.
Again, the healing of the ten lepers ~ was for Christ an occasion
to provide us with a wonderful help for our spiritual needs. He
says to us: I f you want to be happy, be grateful. Do not take for
granted any of the gifts of life - above all, life itself. The person
who can say 'Thank you' confesses his own littleness, admits that
1
Mk7,3~-7.
2
L k I7, I 2 - i 7.
SUFFERING
AND
DEATH
: QUESTION
AND
ANSWER
55
he receives his true reality as a gift. Only in this way can a man
be truly saved: saved from himself, no longer locked up in his own
ego. So God cries out to us: 'Cease to be in love with yourself. Let
yourself go. Confess that you are nothing, that the little that you
are you have received as a gift'.
Then there was the sign in the city of Naim. 1 Our Lord released
a mother from her despair. He gave back to her all that she had
lost. When we think that our lif~ has been of no use to anyone,
wasted on trivialities and frivolities, all our longings unfulfilled,
Christ says to us: 'Have no fear, I will pay it all back to you.
There is no dream and no desire which remains unfulfilled.
You have lost nothing, least of all what you have renounced. Go
forward calmly in self-forgetfulness. Lose all for others. Even if
you have lost all, you will receive all back again from me'. So
Christ draws us out of our spiritual narrowness and out of our
obsessions and sense of failure. This is salvation: salvation from
ourselves, from our own suffering.
In the end h u m a n pain enters so deeply into our being that it
becomes the power of separation and of death. One's whole being
collapses. In death man experiences a radical powerlessness and
:destruction. ls there an answer even here? 'Yes', Christ says to us:
'I possess the key of death'. It is only in the moment of death that
a m a n can finally lay aside the otherness of his own being and
become sufficiently master of himself to encounter Christ completely,
with every fibre of his being. It is in this confrontation that he is
able to make the truly real decision.
According to this hypothesis, ~in the moment of death, every man
is given the possibility of deciding for or against Christ, with complete freedom. Notice that we say 'in the moment' of death. We are
not speaking of the moments immediately preceding death or of
after death; but of the precise moment when the soul abandons
the body. Then it awakens to its full spirituality, and understands
all that created spirit can grasp. It sees its whole life summed up in
a single whole, and discovers God calling and leading. It is impossible in this moment to ignore Christ. M a n must decide once
and for all - for all eternity, which will be nothing more than a
development of what happens in this moment. Here he is faced by
all he has sought for, grasped at, longed for. And through it all
Lk 7, 1 I - I 5.
Fr Boros has developed it fully in his Moment of Truth (London, I965). Ed.
56
S U F F E R I N G AND D E A T H : ~ U E S T I O N AND A N S W E R
there gleams the light of the risen Christ. He is no longer confused
by his environment, all that in his world or in his past that gave
him a distorted image of God. He is able to make a really true
judgment, and decide for total rejection or total embrace of Christ.
The objection to this hypothesis - that if it is true, why bother
to live in this world according to Christ's pattern - is a specious
one. Only I can provide myself with the certainty of making the
right decision in this truly crucial moment. I alone am the measure
of the sincerity of my desire to be converted to Christ. So it follows
that the decision I would wish to make in the future I must begin
to make now, with all that is in me. Every postponement of it will
be a decision against truth and myself. Nothing can guarantee,
except my own responses now, that I will transform everything in
the moment of death. If we understand this, we begin to penetrate
Christ's constant advice: 'Be sober and watch'. So many of us
during our earthly existence wander at a distance from the truth.
So many of us pass God by, dominated by people, things and
events, by our own desires and dreams. All these things hold a man,
scarcely leaving space for God in his thoughts. To enter heaven,
men must have the possibihty of standing before God and deciding
for him. Before this can happen, all that a man was and had, all
that he has made and clung to, that is not God-like, must be taken
away. All the masks must come off, all the roles he has played,
before self and the world alike, must cease. Here is the moment
of decision, when he is liberated from all that prevented him from
seeing God ~ace-to-face. It is in this moment that he stands at the
centre of the cosmos, before the glorified Christ. On his brow the
sun gleams, his eyes are of fire; his face sparkles more than beaten
gold and his hands hold the stars. Christ took upon himself the
agony, the dying and the death, so that every man who has to pass
along the road of death might encounter him; so that every man,
at least in death, could make a free and definitive decision in
his regard.
Thus Christ made us capable once again of recovering the
nearness of God and of entering into endless happiness, the name of
which is heaven, the real beginning of all things.
THE WORD OF GOD
AND P RAYE R
I N T R O D U C T I O N . 'The treasures of the bible are to be opened
up more lavishly, so that richer fare may be provided for the faithful
at the table of God's word. In this way a more representative portion
of the holy scriptures will be read to the people over a set cycle of
years'. These words of the constitution on the liturgy 1 have been
implemented by the publication of a two year lectionary for weekdays.2 This provides for the reading of almost the whole of each of the
four gospels each year, and in alternating years, there are consecutive readings either from the other books of the New Testament, or
from the Old Testament. During the uneven years (eg, I967) , the
readings chosen for the period from after the Epiphany till the beginning of Lent are taken from Genesis, Exodus and Numbers.
From the wealth of material offered we have selected some of the
major themes of sacred history to serve as a basis for reading and
prayer, and to act as a preparation for Lent.
The fundamental theological principle underlying the liturgical
reading of the Old Testament is also the key to prayer about the
Old Testament. St Paul enunciates it quite simply: 'Now these
things happened to them as a warning (literally pattern, tupikos),
but they were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end
of the ages has come', z The events of the Old Testament prefigure
the spiritual realities of the messianic age. Scripture, as a totality,
finds its inner meaning in the mystery of Christ. This was the solid
exegetical principle which guided and still guides the Church.
Where there have been exaggerations in exegesis, this has usually
been due to over-attention to detail, combined with a forgetfulness
of the total unity of scripture. But by reading scripture as a whole,
we can come more and more to appreciate the mystery of Christ as
a whole, to see ourselves more and more through that totality. This
is ultimately the result of prayer; for prayer, whether explicit or
implicit, formal or informal (call it what you will), if it is genuine,
must always lead to a greater integration of the human person with
himself through Christ, who is the beginning and end of all things.
1
8acrosanatum Conciliurn, 5 I.
s London, 1966 : in the RSV by Geoffrey Chapman, in the Knox version by Burns Oates.
8
I COl?. IO~ I I .
58
T H E W O R D OF GOD A N D P R A Y E R
Second week
after Epiphany
WHAT
IS MAN...
I. Formation
H~. LORD QOD formed m a n of dust from the ground, a n d breathed into
~ his
nostrils the breath of life, a n d m a n became a living being.
T h e Lord created m a n out of the earth, a n d turned him back to it again.
H e gave to m e n few days, a limited time, a n d granted them authority over
the things upon the earth. H e endowed them with strength like his own a n d
m a d e them in his own image.
H e placed the fear of them in all living beings a n d granted them dominion
over birds a n d beasts.
H e filled them with knowledge and understanding a n d showed them good
and evil
H e set his eye upon their hearts to show them the majesty of his works. A n d
they will praise his holy name to proclaim the grandeur of his works.
Lord you search me a n d you know me. For it was you who created m y being,
knit me together in m y mother's womb.
I thank you for the wonder of m y being,
for the wonders of all your creation.
F r o m your dwelling you water the hills.
earth drinks its fill from your gift.
You make the grass grow for the cattle,
a n d t h e plant, s to serve m a n ' s needs,
that he m a y bring forth b r e a d from the earth,
a n d wine to cheer man's h e a r t ;
oil, to make his face shine,
a n d b r e a d to strengthen man's heart.
D o not be anxious, saying, ' W h a t shall we eat?' or ' W h a t shall we drink?'
or ' W h a t shall we wear ? ' Y o u r heavenly F a t h e r knows that you need them all.
But seek first his kingdom a n d his righteousness, a n d all these things shall be
yours as well.
T h e L o r d delights in those who revere him,
in those who wait for his love,
T h e Spirit of God has m a d e me a n d the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
Let everything that lives a n d breathes give praise to the Lord.
Now in putting everything in subjection to man, he left nothing outside his
control. So it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.
But we see Jesus.
H e is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all c r e a t i o n . . , all things
were created through him a n d for him. H e is before all things a n d in him all
things hold together. H e is the head of the b o d y the Church.
1 Readings from Gen 2, 4 - I x, 9.
T H E W O R D OF GOD AND P R A Y E R
59
2. Deformation
ND THE LORD GOD commanded m a n saying, 'You m a y freely eat of
A every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good a n d
evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it you shall die'.
A n d m a n a n d his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
Before a m a n are life a n d death, a n d whichever he chooses will be given him.
For great is the wisdom of the Lord; he is mighty in power a n d sees everything. His eyes are on those who fear him, and he knows every deed of man.
He has not commanded anyone to be ungodly and he has not given anyone
permission to sin.
But the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not die'. She took of the fruit of
the tree a n d ate; a n d she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. T h e n
the eyes of both were opened, a n d they knew that they were naked.
Jesus said, 'You are of your father the d e v i l . . , he was a murderer from the
b e g i n n i n g . . , he is a liar a n d the father of lies'.
W h e n they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel a n d killed
him.
Sin came into the world through one man, and death came through s i n . . .
for the wages of sin is death. God created m a n for incorruption, a n d made
h i m i n the image of his own eternity, but t h r o u g h the devil's envy death
entered the world, a n d those who belong to his party experience it.
T h e fool has said in his heart: 'There is no God above'.
T h e Lord saw that the wickedness of m a n was great in the earth, a n d that
every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Their deeds are corrupt, depraved; not a good m a n is left. A n d the Lord was
sorry that tie had made m a n on the earth, a n d it grieved him to his heart,
But Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord. A n d God said to Noah, ' I
have determined to make a n end of all flesh; for the earth is filled with violence through them, behold I will destroy them with the earth'.
I f he should take back his Spirit to himself
a n d gather to himself his b r e a t h ,
all flesh would perish together
a n d m a n would return to dust.
You hide your face, they are dismayed;
you take back your spirit, they die,
returning to the dust from which they came.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.
From heaven God looks down on the sons of m e n to see if any are wise, if
a n y seek God.
All have left the right path, depraved every one.
O lord, do not rebuke me in your anger;
do not punish me, Lord, in your rage.
60
THE
WORD
OF GOD
AND
PRAYER
I a m like a deaf m a n who cannot hear,
like a d u m b m a n who cannot speak.
O Lord, do not forsake me.
My God, do not stay afar off
Make haste a n d come to my help,
O Lord m y God, my saviour.
3" Reformation
o o BLESSED NOAH a n d his sons, a n d said to them, Be fruitful a n d
Behold I establish m y covenant with you
a n d your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with
you; never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, a n d never
again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.
Noah was found perfect a n d righteous;in the time of wrath he was taken in
exchange; therefore a r e m n a n t was left to the earth when the flood came.
Everlasting covenants were made with him, that all flesh should not be blotted out by the flood. By faith, Noah, being warned by God concerning events
as yet unseen, took heed and constructed a n ark for the saving of his household; by this he condemned the world a n d became an heir of the righteousness which comes by faith.
O
• multiply and fill the e a r t h . . .
For a brief m o m e n t I forsook you, but with great compassion I will gather you.
I n overflowing wrath for a m o m e n t I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the Lord your redeemer. For
this is like the days of Noah to me: as I swore that the waters of Noah should
no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you
a n d will not rebuke you. For the mountains may depart a n d the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, a n d my covenant of
peace shall not be removed, says the Lord who has compassion on you.
We await a saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body
to be like his glorious body, by the power which enables him even to subject
all things to himself. Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet
appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like
him, for we shall see him as he is. A n d everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness.
I n your compassion blot out my offence.
O wash me more a n d more fi:om m y guilt,
and cleanse me from my sin.
The first A d a m became a living being; the last A d a m became a life-giving
spirit. The first m a n was from the earth a m a n of dust; the second m a n is
from heaven...
Just as we have borne the image of the m a n of dust, we shall also bear the
image of the m a n of heaven.
THE
WORD
OF
GOD
AND
PRAYER
61
God who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even
when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with
Christ, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us. For
he has made known to us in all wisdom a n d insight the mystery of his will,
according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fulness
of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven a n d things on earth.
You stretch out your h a n d a n d save me,
your h a n d will do all things for me.
Your love, O Lord, is eternal,
discard not the work of your hands.
Teach me to do your will,
for you, O Lord, are m y God.
Let your good spirit guide me
in ways that are level a n d smooth.
Third and fourth weeks
after Epiphany1
FATHER
OF
THOSE
WHO
BELIEVE
N THOSE DAYS the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country a n d your
I kindred a n d your father's house to the land that I will show you. A n d I will
make of'you a great nation and I will bless you, a n d make your name great,
so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, a n d him who
curses you I will curse; a n d by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves. So A b r a m went as the Lord h a d told him.
By faith A b r a h a m obeyed, when he was called to go out to a place which he
was to receive as a n inheritance; a n d he went out not knowing where he was
to go. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living
in tents with Isaac a n d Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. He was
looking forward to the city which has foundations, whose builder a n d maker
is God.
A b r a h a m believed God, a n d it was reckoned to h i m as righteousness. I n hope
he believed against hope, that he should become the Father of m a n y nations;
as he had been told 'So shall your descendants be'. He did not weaken in faith
when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead, or when he
considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver
concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave
glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had pronfised.
Thus A b r a h a m believed in God, a n d it was reckoned to him as righteousness.
So you see that it is m e n of faith who are sons of Abraham. So then, those who
are men of faith are blessed with A b r a h a m who had faith.
a Readings from Gen 12, I - 28, 22.
62
T H E W O R D OF GOD A N D P R A Y E R
I n Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as m a n y of you as
were baptized into Christ have p u t on Christ. There is neither J e w nor Greek,
there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all
one in Christ Jesus. A n d if you are Christ's then you are A b r a h a m ' s offspring,
heirs according to promise.
I n those days G o d tested A b r a h a m , a n d said to him, A b r a h a m . A n d he said,
Here I am. H e said, Take your son, your only son Isaac, w h o m you love, a n d
go to the l a n d of Moriah, a n d offer him there as a b u r n t offering upon one of
the mountains of which I shall tell you.
By faith A b r a h a m , when he was tested, offered up Isaac, a n d he who h a d
received the promises was ready to offer u p his only son, of whom it was said,
' T h r o u g h Isaac shall your descendants be named'. H e considered that G o d
was able to raise men even from the d e a d ; hence, figuratively speaking, he d i d
receive him back. A n d the angel of the Lord called to A b r a h a m a second time
from heaven, a n d said, By myself I have sworn, Says the Lord, because you
have done this, a n d have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed
bless you, a n d I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven a n d as
the sand which is on the seashore. A n d b y your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, because you have obeyed m y voice.
T h e y answered him, A b r a h a m is our father. Jesus said to them, I f you were
A b r a h a m ' s children, you wou!d do w h a t A b r a h a m d i d ; b u t now you seek to
kill me, a m a n who has told you the truth which I heard from G o d ; this is not
w h a t A b r a h a m did. D o not presume to say to yourselves, W e have A b r a h a m
as our Father, for I tell you, G o d is able from these stones to raise u p children
to A b r a h a m . I tell you, m a n y will come from the east a n d the west a n d sit at
table with A b r a h a m , Isaac a n d Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.
W a s not our Father A b r a h a m justified b y works, when he offered his son Isaac
u p o n the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith
was completed by works.
A n d Zacchaeus stood a n d said to the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of m y
goods I give t o the p o o r ; a n d if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I
restore it fourfold. A n d Jesus said to him, T o d a y salvation has come to this
house, since he also is a son of A b r a h a m .
Jesus said to them, Your father A b r a h a m rejoiced that he was to see m y d a y ;
he saw it a n d was g l a d . . . Truly, truly I say to you, before A b r a h a m was, I am.
O children of A b r a h a m , his servant,
O sons of the J a c o b he chose.
H e the Lord is our G o d :
his judgements prevail in all the earth.
H e remembers his covenant for ever,
his promise for a thousand generations,
the covenant he m a d e with A b r a h a m .
So he brought out his people with joy,
T H E W O R D OF GOD A N D PRAY~.R
63
his chosen ones with shouts of rejoicing.
Blessed be the L o r d the G o d of Israel,
he has visited his people a n d redeemed them.
So his love for our fathers is fulfilled
a n d his holy covenant remembered.
l i e swore to A b r a h a m our father
to grant us that, free f r o m fear a n d saved from the hands & o u r foes,
we might serve him in holiness a n d justice
all the days of our life in his presence.
H e protects Israel his servant,
remembering his mercy,
the mercy promised to our fathers,
for A b r a h a m a n d his sons for ever.
Fourth and fifth weeks
after E#iphany 1
GOD'S
FREE
CHOICE
"~SAAC PRAYEDto the L o r d for his wife, because she was barren; a n d the
.LLord granted his prayer, a n d Rebekah his wife conceived. T h e children
struggled within her a n d she said, I f it is this, why do I live? So she went to
inquire of the Lord. A n d the L o r d said to her, T w o nations are in your womb,
a n d two peoples born of y o u shall be divided; the one shall be stronger t h a n
the other, the elder shall serve the younger.
But it is not as though the w o r d of God h a d failed. F o r not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, a n d not all are children of A b r a h a m
because they are his descendants; but 'through Isaac shall your descendants
be n a m e d ' . This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the
children of God, b u t the children of the promise are reckoned as descendants.
F o r this is w h a t the promise said, ' A b o u t t h i s t i m e I will return a n d Sarah
shall have a son'. A n d not only so, but also when R e b e k a h h a d conceived
children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born
a n d h a d done nothing either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of
election might continue, not because of works but because of his call, she was
told, ' T h e elder will serve the younger'. As it is written, 'Jacob I loved b u t
Esau I hated'.
W h a t shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's p a r t ? By no means! F o r
he says to Moses, ' I will have mercy on w h o m I have mercy, and compassion
on w h o m I have compassion'. So it depends not on m a n ' s will or exertion, b u t
u p o n God's mercy. Your name shall no more be called J a c o b , but Israel, for
you have striven with G o d a n d with men, and have prevailed. So his n a m e
was called Israel. A n d G o d said to him, I a m G o d almighty: be fruitful a n d
1 Readings from Gen 25, 2 z - 5o, 2 I.
64
THE
WORD
OF
GOD AND P R A Y E R
multiply; a nation a n d a company of nations shall come from you, a n d kings
shall spring from you. The land which I gave to A b r a h a m a n d to Isaac I shall
give to you, and I will give the land to your descendants after you.
A n d Samuel said to Jesse, Are all your sons here? A n d he said, There remains
yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the s h e e p . . , a n d he sent a n d
brought him in. T h e n Samuel took the horn of oil, a n d anointed him in the
midst of his brothers; and the spirit of" the Lord came mightily upon David
from that day forward.
You did not choose me, b u t I chose you a n d appointed you that you should
go a n d bear fruit, a n d that your fruit should abide.
It is not because you were more in n u m b e r than a n y other people that the
Lord set his love upon you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all
peoples; but it is because the Lord loves you, a n d is keeping the oath which
he swore to your fathers.
For consider your call, brethren; not m a n y of you were wise according to
worldly standards, not m a n y were powerful, not m a n y were of noble birth;
but God chose what is foolish in this world to shame the wise, God chose what
is weak in this world to shame the strong. God chose what is low a n d despised
in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so
that no h u m a n being may boast in the presence of God.
Sixth week
after Epiphany i
THE
EXODUS
~E PEOPLE OF ISgA~L groaned under their bondage, and cried out for
T help, a n d their cry u n d e r bondage came u p to God. And God heard their
groaning, a n d God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac a n d
with Jacob.
A n d God called to Moses out of the bush, Moses, Moses. A n d he said, Here I
am. T h e n he said, Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for
the place on which you are standing is holy ground. A n d he said, I am the
God of your Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, a n d the God of
Jacob. A n d Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
T h e n the Lord said, I have seen the affliction of my people who are in
E g y p t . . . I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring forth m y people,
the sons of Israel out of Egypt.
God said to Moses, I A M W H O AM. A n d he said, Say this to the people of
Israel - I A M has sent me to you.
W h e n Israel was a child I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
T h e first born of the egyptians he smote,
for his great love is without end;
He brought Israel out of their midst,
1 Readings from Exod *, 8 - 14, 3 I.
T H E W O R D OF GOD A N D P R A Y E R
65
for his great love is without end;
a r m outstretched with power in his hand,
for his great love is without end;
he flung Pharaoh a n d his force into the sea,
for his great love is without end.
Lord, your n a m e stands for ever,
unforgotten from age to age:
for the Lord does justice for his people;
the L o r d takes pity on his servants.
Moses said to the people, F e a r not a n d stand firm a n d see the salvation of the
Lord, which he will work for you today; for the egyptians whom you see
today, you shall never see again. T h e Lord will fight for you, a n d you have
only to be still.
Israel saw the great work which the L o r d did against the egyptians; a n d the
people feared the Lord; a n d they believed in the L o r d a n d in his servant
Moses.
Moses considered abuse suffered for Christ greater wealth than the treasures
of Egypt, for he looked to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid
of the anger of the king; for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. By
faith he kept the passover a n d sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the
first-born might not touch them. By faith the people crossed the R e d Sea as if
on d r y land; b u t the egyptians, when they a t t e m p t e d to do the same, were
drowned.
I w a n t you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, a n d
all passed through the sea, a n d all were baptized into Moses in the cloud a n d
in the sea, a n d all ate the same supernatural food, a n d all drank the same
supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed
them, a n d the Rock was Christ.
T h e n Moses called all the elders of Israel, a n d said to them, Select lambs for
yourselves according to your families a n d kill the passover lamb. T a k e a
bunch of hyssop a n d dip it in the blood which is in the basin, a n d touch the
lintel a n d the two doorposts with the blood that is in the b a s i n ; . . , for the
Lord will pass through to slay the egyptians; a n d when he sees the blood on
the lintel a n d on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door, a n d will
not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to slay you. You will observe this
rite as an ordinance for you a n d for your sons for e v e r . . . A n d then a n d
when your children say to you, W h a t do you mean b y this service? you shall
say, I t is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover, for he passed over the houses of
the people of Israel in Egypt, when he slew the egyptians, but spared our
houses. A n d the people bowed their heads a n d worshipped:
N o w before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour h a d
come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who
were in the world, he loved them to the end. A n d he said to them, I have earn-
66
T H E W O R D OF GOD A N D P R A Y E R
esfly desired to eat the passover with you before I suffer. This is m y body
which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
Behold the L a m b of God. Behold him who takes away the sins of the world.
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no m a n could number, from every nation, from all tribes a n d peoples a n d tongues, standing before the throne and before the lamb, clothed in white robes with p a l m branches in their hands.
These are they who have come out of great tribulation; they have washed
their robes a n d made them white in the blood of the L a m b . Therefore are
they before the throne of God, and serve him d a y and night within his temple.
and he who sits upon the throne will shelter them with his presence. T h e y
shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; the sun shall not strike them,
nor a n y scorching heat. For the L a m b in the midst of the throne will be their
shepherd, a n d he will guide them to springs of living water; a n d G o d will
wipe away every tear from their eyes.
I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously.
T h e Lord is m y strength and m y song.
a n d he has become m y salvation;
this is m y G o d a n d I will praise him,
m y father's God a n d I will exalt him.
You have led in your steadfast love
the people w h o m you have redeemed;
you have guided them b y your strength to your holy abode.
Week after
Septuagesima ~
INTO
THE
WILDERNESS
HROUGH THE DESERT his people he led
T for his great love is without end.
A n d you shall remember all the way which the L o r d your G o d has led you
these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to
know w h a t was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments
or not. A n d he humbled you a n d let you hunger a n d fed you with manna,
which you did not know, nor did your fathers know; that he might make you
know that m a n does not live b y b r e a d alone, b u t that m a n lives by everything
that proceeds from the m o u t h of God.
K n o w then in your heart that, as a m a n disciplines his son, the Lord your
G o d disciplines you.
I t is for discipline that you have to endure. G o d is treating you as sons; for
w h a t son is there whom his father does not discipline? I f you are left without
discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children
a n d not sons. l i e disciplines us for our good, that we m a y share in his holiness.
1 Readings from Exod i6, i - 20, 2x.
T H E W O R D OF GOD AND P R A Y E R
67
M y son, do not despise the Lord's discipline
or be weary of his reproof,
for the Lord reproves him whom he loves,
as a father the son in whom he delights.
T h e Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as
he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, a n d in the wilderness where you
have seen how the Lord your God bore you, as a m a n bears his son, in all the
way that you went until you came to this place,
For you are a people holy to the Lord your God;
the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession,
out of all the people that are on the face of the earth.
A n d Jesus, full of the holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by
the Spirit for forty days in the wilderness, tempted by the devil. A n d he ate
nothing in those days; a n d when they were ended, he was hungry.
For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without
sinning. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that
we may receive mercy a n d find grace to help in time of need.
Come in; let us bow down and bend low;
let us kneel before the God who made us;
for he is our God a n d we the people who belong to his pasture,
the flock that is fed by his hand.
O Lord, you are our father; we are the clay, a n d you are our potter; we are
all the work of your hand. Be not exceedingly angry, O Lord, a n d remember
not iniquity for ever. Behold, consider, we are all your people.
Therfore, I will allure her, a n d bring her into the wilderness, a n d speak
tenderly to her. A n d there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at
the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.
It was I who taught E p h r a i m to walk, I took them u p in m y arms; but they
did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of compassion, with
the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their
jaws, a n d I bent down to them a n d fed them.
O search me God, a n d know m y heart.
O test me a n d know my thoughts.
See that I follow not the wrong path
a n d lead me in the path of life eternal.
Septuagesima
to Sexagesima 1
MAN'S REBELLIOUS
HEART
EMEMBER a n d do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to
R wrath in the wilderness; from the day you came out of the land of
Egypt, until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the
1 Readings from Exod 32 - 34" Num 14 - 26.
68
T H E WORD OF GOD AND P R A Y E R
Lord. Even at Horeb you provoked the Lord to w r a t h . . . At T a b e r a h also
a n d at Massah and at Kibroth-hattavah you provoked the Lord to wrath.
A n d when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barne-a, saying, Go up a n d take
possession of the land which I have given you, then you rebelled against the
c o m m a n d m e n t of the Lord your God, and did not believe him or obey his
voice. You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, How long shall this wicked generation
m u r m u r against me? I have heard the murmurings of the people of Israel,
which they m u r m u r against me. Say to them, As I live, says the Lord, what
you have said in my hearing I will do to you: your dead bodies shall fall in
the wilderness. The people spoke against God a n d against Moses, Why have
you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food
a n d no water and we loathe this worthless food. T h e n the Lord sent fiery
serpents among the people, a n d they bit the people so that m a n y people of
Israel died. A n d the people came to Moses and said, We have sinned, for we
have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that he take
away the serpents from us. So Moses prayed for the people. A n d the Lord
said to Moses, Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; a n d every one who is
bitten, when he sees it, shall live.
Now these things are warnings to us not to desire evil as they did. Do not be
idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, The people sat down to eat
and drink a n d rose up to dance. We must not indulge in immorality, as some
of them did, and twenty three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put
the Lord to the test, as some of them did, a n d were destroyed by serpents; nor
grumble, as some of them did, a n d were destroyed by the destroyer. Now
these things happened to them as a warning, but they were written down for
our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone
who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.
Jesus said, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of
m a n be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. A n d I,
when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.
All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient a n d contrary people.
They sinned against him;
they defied the most High in the desert.
I n their heart they put God to the test
by demanding the food they craved.
The words they spoke were mere flattery;
they lied to him with their lips.
For their hearts were not truly with him;
they were not faithful to his covenant.
Yet he who is full of compassion
forgave their sin a n d spared them.
So often he held back his anger
when he might have stirred up his rage.
T H E W O R D OF GOD A N D P R A Y E R
69
I n the greatness of his love he relented
a n d he let them be treated with mercy
b y all who held them captive.
O that today you would listen to his voice!
H a r d e n not your hearts as at Meribah, as on
O that d a y at Massah in the desert
when your fathers p u t m e to the test,
when they tried me, though they saw m y work.
F o r forty years I was wearied of these people,
a n d I said, Their hearts are astray,
these people do not know m y ways.
Jesus said, M y sheep hear m y voice, a n d I know them, a n d they follow me;
a n d I give t h e m eternal life, a n d no-one shall snatch them out of m y hand.
Truly, trnly, I say to you, he who hears m y word a n d believes him who sent
me, has eternal life; he does not come into judgement, but has passed from
d e a t h to life. H e who is of G o d hears the words of G o d ; the reason why you
do not hear them is that you are not of God. Everyone who is of the truth
hears m y voice. T h e Spirit a n d the bride say, Come. A n d let him who hears
say, Come. A n d let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires, take the
water of life without price.
I f now I have found favour in thy sight, O Lord, let the Lord, I p r a y you, go
in the midst of us, although it is s stiff-necked people; a n d p a r d o n our iniquity
a n d our sin, a n d take us for your inheritance.
Week after
Sexagesima 1
COVENANT
ND ~aOSESwent up to God, a n d the L o r d called to him out of the moun-
A tain, saying, Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, a n d tell the people
of Israel: You have seen what I did to the egyptians, a n d how I bore you on
eagles' wings a n d brought you to myself. Now therefore you ~
obey m y
voice a n d keep m y covenant, you shaU be m y own possession among all
peoples; for all the earth is mine, a n d you shall be to me a kingdom of priests
and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children
of Israel.
Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord a n d all the ordinances; a n d all the people answered with one voice a n d said, All the words
which the L o r d has spoken we will do. A n d Moses wrote all the words of the
Lord. T h e n he took the book of the covenant a n d r e a d it in the hearing of the
people, and they said, All that the L o r d has spoken we will do, a n d we will
be obedient. A n d Moses took the blood a n d threw it u p o n the people a n d
said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has m a d e with you
in accordance with all these words.
1 Readings from Exod 19, I - 24, I8.
7°
THE
WORD
OF
GOD
AND
PRAYER
But when Christ a p p e a r e d as a high priest of the good things that have come,
then through the greater a n d more perfect tent, (not m a d e with hands, that
is, not of this creation), he entered once and for all into the holy place, taking
not the blood of goats a n d calves but his own blood, thus securing eternal
redemption. Therefore he is the mediator of the new covenant, so that those
who are called m a y receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death
has occurred which redeems them from transgressions under the first
covenant.
So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a
second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting
for him.
This cup which is p o u r e d out for you is the new covenant in m y blood. Do
this as often as you drink it in r e m e m b r a n c e of me. For as often as you eat this
b r e a d a n d drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your
fathers, not with perishable things such as silver and gold, but with the
precious blood of Christ, like that of a l a m b without blemish or spot.
You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people,
that you m a y declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of
darkness into his marvellous light. Once you were no people, b u t now you
are God's people; once you h a d not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far offhave been brought near in
the blood of Christ. F o r he is our peace.
Now m a y the G o d of peace who brought again from the d e a d our Lord
Jesus Christ, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of a n eternal
covenant, equip you with everything good, that you m a y do his will, working
in you that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be
glory for ever and ever Amen.
W o r t h y are you tO take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain a n d
by your blood ransomed men for G o d from every tribe and tongue a n d people
and nation, a n d m a d e them a kingdom a n d priests to our God, a n d they shall
reign on earth.
Great are the works of the L o r d ;
to be pondered by all who love them.
Majestic a n d glorious his work,
his justice stands firm for ever.
He makes us remember his wonders.
T h e Lord is compassion and love.
H e gives food to those who fear him;
keeps his covenant ever in mind.
TEXT
A MEDYIATION ON THE TALE OF SINS
It has been said of U t h r e d of Boldon (c 1324-97 ) the benedictine author of this
Meditafio Devota, 1 that there was never a monk of Durham more learned than he. 2
One of the famous doctors in theology at Oxford during the.fourteenth century, some of
his theories on grace and predestination (including the theory, recently revived, that
all men, christian or not, including still-born children, are given a Vision of God at the
point of death which enables them to choose or reject him for all eternity) werecondemned
by Archbiship Langham of Canterbury, though U t h r e d was never personally censured.
However, he was withdrawnfrom Oxford and spent the rest of his life at Durham or its
near-by dependency- Finchale, where he continued to be one of the outstanding theological
opponents of the wydi~tes. He also enjoyed a reputation as a good and holy monk, and
a saying of his, proverbium ma,~istrl U t h r e d i was still quoted fifty years after
his death, concerning religious (and mutatis mutandis other christians) who must
devote themselves to study: 'It is never a good thing to lose sight of the substancefor the
sake of the accidental. The substance is to celebrate and hear mass, to recite the divine
office at the proper time; that is, to fulfil all that belongs to true monastic living, and
then to give one's time to books and teaching whenever opportunity offers'.
The purpose of the Meditatio Devota is succinctly expressed in the title given it in a
latefourteenth century Cambridge M S : 'A meditation written to rouse up a man to know
himself'. It reveals U thred as one who possessed a deep sense of abiding sorrowfor his
sins, of his own unworthiness, and constantfailure to correspond with grace, but whose
hope in God's infinite mercy remains unshaken.
EDITATION is an exercise of the inner m i n d whose purpose is to fire a
M man's affections a n d turn them with devotion to God. This meditation,
therefore, cannot be p o n d e r e d in the midst of noisy distractions; it needs
quiet. Nor is it to be skimmed through by gabbling the words; it is to be r e a d
with feeling, with the heart a n d soul. During the time of meditation, the
m i n d must raise itself above all ephemeral a n d purely worldly occupations :
it must take a n d fix the point of its thought on G o d alone. It must examine
a n d re-examine from every angle God's absolute goodness, the immensity
a n d gratuitousness of his gifts. I t must consider fallen m a n ' s repeated ingraftrude a n d his wretchedness with sorrow a n d shame; it must desire truthfully
a n d freely to make amends, a n d faithfully to promise this; it must be filled
with hope a n d with confidence that all it sees is the truth, because of God's
infinite mercy.
T h e reader must not make it his task to r e a d the whole of this meditation
at once, but only that p a r t of it which, at a n y given moment, satisfies his
x This translation of the Meditatio Devota has been made from the latin text published
by Hugh Farmer in Studia Anselmiana, Fasc. 43 (I958), PP I95-eo6, with his kind permission. The english title is our own. - Ed.
Leland J, Commentariide Scriptoribus Britannicis (Oxford, I7o9) II, p 393.
72
TEXT
nfind and, as we have said, lifts up a n d fires his affections. Nor should he
always begin at the beginning, b u t at the place where his devotion finds its
pleasure; a n d the meditation should be continued as long as the devotion
lasts.
Meditation
I will call to m i n d in your presence, Lord, all the years of m y life, with
bitterness of soul (Isai 3 8, 15)- W h e n I think of m y time on this earth, a n d
dwell on it more deeply, what strikes me first of all is that I was born in
wretchedness, a n d have continued to live in a wretchedness that appalls m e
whenever I reflect on it. I find in myself a fear that m y departure hence will
be equally as wretched in your sight, that I will be r o b b e d of the c o m p a n y
of your holy ones a n d be condemned to eternal torment. Yet in your loving
kindness, Lord, you have given me time to repent; this is why, in bitterness
of soul, I wish to call to m i n d all the years of m y life.
First, I recognize that m y mother conceived me in iniquity a n d sin (Ps 5 o,
7), that like the rest of mankind, I came into the world a child of wrath, of
calamity a n d wretchedness (Zeph I, I5) , destined for death a n d hell,
carrying from m y birth the intolerable weight of original sin, which condemned me, without hope of reprieve, to an infernal chaos of horror, the dreadful
abode of demons. F r o m m y birth I was doomed to this inescapable fate,
since, in A d a m , I h a d eaten the forbidden fruit, which justly condemned me
in God's sight to this terrible punishment. F r o m the m o m e n t of m y birth, I
was under the cruel spell of the devil, robbed of those special gifts of grace,
with even m y natural powers injured, bound fast with the chains of sin, of
rebellion agains t God, which drag one down f r o m b a d to worse, and prevent
one from achieving the good. F r o m m y very birth I was under the spell of
concupiscence, of the lewdness of m y own flesh, which is a kind of procuress
of the devil a n d the enemy of m y true self, constantly driving me to excesses,
to unlawful pleasures, to gluttony, to sexual vice; insinuating a weariness
a n d a distaste for all that is good, and persuading me that there will be a
lasting j o y a n d delight in the pleasures of the senses. I n such a state I came
into the world - a lot which I share with every man, kings a n d princes alike.
A n d yet, m y L o r d a n d m y God, I know that you did not fashion me like
this in the beginning; rather I was de-formed in m y first parents, through the
deceit a n d fraud of the devil. I a m also fully aware, Lord, that you are the
substantial and everlasting truth a n d that nothing deceitful can exist in your
kingdom. A n d so it was that you found a remedy which would release me
from m y deformity a n d achieve a re-fashioning. This I know, and it is echoed
in the apostle's question a n d answer: ' U n h a p p y m a n tl~at I am, who will
release m e from the body of this death? T h e grace of God, through our L o r d
]¢s'a~ Ghfist'. (P,,~m 7, ~ , - 5 ) . Ate,~ fo~ tlxis frizktful 4e[o~mtt7, for tlai~ vcretched weakness of mind. I a m w o u n d e d to the death, all m y gifts of nature
reduced to impotence; a n d there is no one to cure me, neither m a n nor angel
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73
nor archangel, neither principalities nor powers, no creature, no creaturely
power. I can be healed by grace alone, by that boundless merciful love. He
alone who made me can heal m y deformity a n d fashion me anew. Nor I dare
say that m y guilt is that happy one which was found worthy to be cured by
so wonderful a redeemer (cf Exultet). T h e contrary is true: there is nothing
more u n h a p p y than m y guilt; there is nothing in it that deserves redemption
- only damnation. See it as it is, and you will see that it is too horrible to
deserve the attention of this marvellous redeemer.
A n d yet, the deeper m y guilt, the more wonderful a n d precious its remedy:
for a complete satisfaction has been made for it - j u s t i c e has been fully
served. M y crime, m y guilt was so great, that there was only one possible
remedy: it could be cancelled out only by the despoilment of m y Lord God
h i m s e l f - his ineffable kenosis, when he took u p o n himself the nature of a slave
(Phil 12, 7), when he suffered the ultimate indignity of being the reproach of
m e n (Ps 2 i, 7). A crown of thorns was beaten into his most blessed head, a n d
every part of his body was cruelly tortured; he was scourged a n d torn most
wickedly, his hands a n d feet horribly transfixed, nailed to the wood of the
cross, l-Iis side, his very heart, was torn asunder by the spear. W h a t a great
wound this made; out of it flowed the last drop of his heart's blood. Such was
the death of m y Lord, a cruel a n d ignominious way to die. Thus he chose
to show his goodness, his merciful love, his loving kindness, his merciful tenderness: a love more powerful than death. Here I understand the tender compassion, the love of m y redeemer, the love of a brother, a fabulous love for us,
his brothers (Eph 2, 4)- It is as though he paid no heed to the power of his
majesty, as though he loved me, wretch that I am, more than himself; and so
he took upon himself all these terrible weaknesses of mine; it was as though
he had become sin itself for my sake. He wanted to suffer all these torments
so as to free me from those weaknesses that would be the death of me, from
suffering that would be endless. A n d so he carried me on his shoulders, back
to that happiness I had lost (cf Lk 15, 5).
So I come to appreciate the infinitely precious gift of redemption. But this
is not all; I must add to this the ineffable gift of God's providence towards me
in particular. I t was nothing to do with me - this special choice of me for the
gift of baptism which washed away all my sins, a n d made me one of his sons,
a n d heir to his fortune (Rom 8, 17). l i e robbed my enemies of all their power
a n d force; he took nearly all the sting out of m y sinful tendencies a n d desires,
a n d gave me the grace a n d strength to do good. He, my God, brought me up
a christian; he created a n environment for me in which it was normal a n d
n a t u r a l to receive the sacraments regularly, in which I could learn to understand the true meaning of divine worship, both by the teaching a n d by the
example of others; a n d then he called me out of the world into his special
service, to be a servant of his family.
By this I mean he called me to the monastic state, where, because of the
good example of everyone - elders or juniors, it made no difference - I was
shamed into living a truly religious life; where m y superiors were constantly
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on the alert to lead me away, even against m y will, from evil living, b y
instruction or by good example, by alternate blandishments a n d threatenings. So it was that he called me to a task a n d function that outstripped
nature, where I, wretched little m a n that I was, received the power of administering the sacrament of his most precious body a n d blood; a privilege
witheld from angels a n d archangels and, if I m a y mention it in all reverence,
from his blessed mother herself. For this ineffable gift, I owe m y God, like
the apostle, a very special gratitude (2 Cor 9, I5).
It was thus that m y God preserved me from these innumerable sinful deeds
into which m y enemies, the world, the flesh a n d the devil, laboured continually to drag me. H e preserved me from so m a n y bodily dangers - from drownings a n d burnings, from the perils of the traveller, from robbers, from the
numerous daily hazards which life brings with it. I n waking a n d in sleeping
alike, he shielded me from the onslaughts of the devil, from the inevitable
weariness of fighting against evil.
A n d the gifts that m y G o d h a d given me: gifts of perception a n d understanding, of intelligence a n d reasoning - those special powers of the m i n d ;
a n d bodily gifts as well - physical strength a n d coordination a n d comeliness,
a sufficiency of food a n d clothing such as is proper to h u m a n dignity. He has
given m e also leisure for fruitful growth: no question o f setting the sort of
time limit of three or four years as for the barren fig tree (Lk I3, 6-9) ; rather
he has given me all the time in the world, helping me every d a y with fresh
gifts, by means of which I might be a credit to him, growing up towards m y
own fulfilment a n d earning the rewards of eternal happiness. All this m a y be
summed up as the special grace of God's providence towards me. A n d to
how m a n y h u m a n beings it has never been given to enjoy it, whether in
childhood or adolescence, m a t u r i t y or old a g e : not to lords, kings a n d emperors, nor to men endowed with wordly wisdom a n d philosophical learning,
with beauty and exquisite manners, with extraordinary physical strength; all
these have perished through the lack of your special providence. W h y is it,
m y God, that all these have been left unchosen, rejected, while you so
tenderly cared for me, wretch that I am, brought me up as one of your own
family, giving me so m a n y extraordinary privileges? I t is not as though
there were any special merits in m e which might have earned such blessings:
it is as clear as daylight that I a m what I a m through the grace of G o d (I Cot
I5, io) ; a n d yet I must confess in sorrow that his grace has been without fruit
in me. W h a t have I given to my Lord in return for all these blessings, a n d
others I have not mentioned, which he showered on me? W h a t excuses can I
find in m y shame? H o w can I rid myself of fear ? H o w shrug off this weight of
anguish? W h a t have I given him in return? W o u l d that I might find some
place to hide myself from m y own searing conscience which cries out against
me. W h a t horrors fill me at the thought of all this; w h a t torture of s e l f accusation as I face the depths of m y wickedness. W h a t shame is mine, what
confusion under the weight of" m y ingratitude, self-condemning.
There are three things especially that fill m y heart with fear, a n d a tburth
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in which I find a particular terror. M y first fear is to be cast offbecause of the
terrible sin of ingratitude - when I think of how wonderfully G o d has blessed
me, while I have to confess, alas, that I have repaid him b y m y extreme wickedness. All that grace a n d strength he has given me - a n d how I have abused
it, contemptuous of his commands without a shred of gratitude; a n d w h a t is
worse, in m y swollen pride, I have pretended that his gifts d i d not come from
him, but were m y own property.
Another thing that terrifies me - m y very being is full of lles a n d deceit.
A t m y baptism I m a d e a promise' a promise renewed every d a y in m y confession of faith, that I would renounce the devil a n d his works a n d pomps, that
I would reject the allurements of the world, turn m y back on fleshly delights,
make amends for m y past life by continual tears of compunction a n d salutary
penance; that I would bind myself to serve G o d alone. But now, when I
reflect on how I have kept this promise, I see compelling reasons for lamentation, for sorrow that knows no consolation, for incessant sighing a n d groaning, night a n d day. I see the vile w a y in which I have broken m y promise,
that I have failed to keep faith for a single m o m e n t ; I a m like the dog who
returns to his vomit, like the swine who rolls in the mire (2 Pet 2, 2~). I have
committed over a n d over again, day in, day out, the very sins I abjured, a n d
others graver still, with never a thought of repentance. W h a t a n u n h a p p y
a n d wretched state a m I reduced to by m y sins I Whenever I was led to consent to them, they a p p e a r e d so trifling; there was a sweetness a n d delight in
them, they carried a promise that to turn from them a n d to a m e n d would
be easy, through repentance a n d the divine mercy. But now they pierce m e
to the heart, crucify me, gnaw at m y vitals, plunge m e into darkness, overwhelm me with their weight, hold me fast in their bonds, a n d refuse to let me
go. A n d whenever I seem to be ridding myself of them through repentance,
I realize that I a m not able to shake myself free of them; I a m fastened to
them by two unbreakable chains - the pleasure which sin brings a n d the
h a b i t of sinning. A n d so I a m d r a w n back again to sinning, to more serious
sins which leap up a n d multiply. H o w m a n y terrible sins have I thus accumulated in m y past life, how d a m n a b l y have I wasted the time the Lord has
given me for fruitful increase, spending it maliciously in vice a n d sinfulness,
or wasting it in vain a n d idle pursuits. So then, since whatever is sterile a n d
unproductive is to be cut down a n d cast into the fire (Lk 3, 9), I see that all
the years of m y life are the stuff of d a m n a t i o n - now that I reflect on them
seriously a n d examine them intimately.
I f there a p p e a r to be a n y good works to p u t in the scales against all this,
look at these carefully, a n d you will see that they are nullified by vain glory,
blackened by lack of discretion, contaminated b y bitterness or vitiated by
some other evil circumstance; so that they must be considered not as pleasing
to G o d but displeasing. I see clearly enough that whatever good I have done
in no w a y corresponds to the gifts of m i n d a n d body which I have received
from G o d ; it is not even sufficient to p a y for the daily nourishment which has
kept m y body alive. W h a t good works are there, then? H a v e I anything to sell
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that would fetch any p r i c e - anything which would indicate that I a m a useful
servant? All I see is that I have committed a multiplicity of detestable faults,
that I have gone on doing so all my life; a n d the result is that I deserve to
suffer eternal punishment.
From this consideration there comes a third, to make my heart tremble
with fear: how shall I answer, on the dread day of judgement, for such base
ingratitude, for all m y broken promises, for all my crimes? How shall I
stand before God a n d his angels in m y shame and my crookedness, with little
or nothing good to show, straitened on every side by terror (GfJer 49, 24) ? So
many, so grave m y sins; and others will suddenly show themselves as from a n
ambush, sins which are now hidden, a n d perhaps more terrible than those I
see now. M a n y things which I do not see now as evil - perhaps I even think
them good - then, when all lies open, will show themselves as the blackest sins
of all; a n d all these will be my accusers. All the powers, graces a n d other gifts
I have received Will join in accusing me for the worst of wretches. And, outside myself, the devil a n d the world will be standing there: they, a n d indeed
every creature, will d e m a n d that j u d g m e n t be passed on my iniquities.
From within, my own flesh, always at war with my spirit (Gal 5, 17), a n d
that worm which gnaws at my conscience, will be there to give evidence of
m y wickedness. The most high judge himself, with all his impartiality, must
show his anger then; for it is he whom I have so often provoked by the enormity of my crimes. Death itself a n d hell in all its foulness will be there, ready
to swallow me up, to expose me to eternal torment. Even mercy itself, which
now is waiting for that change of heart, will be m y accuser then, and judge
me strictly according to m y works. Will there by any one to speak for me,
to offer evidence on the other side, when mercy itself begins to accuse me?
T h e n will I be ordered to give an account of m y whole life l o n g - how I have
spent every least moment. Every least sensation of mine will be matter for
condemnation: sight, hearing, taste, smell a n d touch, whether in deed or in
word, in gesture or in motion, in leisure or silence, down to the least thought everything in my living that was not directed to the fulfilment of the Lord's
will.
Above a n d beyond all these there is a fourth consideration which fills m y
soul with fear. If I a m found guilty, it is not merely that I shall be condemned
to perpetual imprisonment with demons; it is that I shall be deprived of the
blessed sight of my God, the vision face-to-face, the sight which is happiness.
Such a pain incomparably exceeds all the others. Just as this sight satisfies
every possible desire of the blessed, so its absence is a torment beyond every
sort of torment which can be imagined. W h a t a fool, not to have thought of
the slings a n d arrows of sin, when I turned away from m y God to d a m n a t i o n
in order to commit them. Stupid wretch a n d dupe that I was : I realize it well
enough now; for the sake of a moment's delight which blinded me then, I a m
tormented now within a n d without; I am driven to constant lamentation, to
labour all day in m y groaning, to drench my bed each night with m y tears
(Ps 6, 7). No wonder that sobbing a n d sighing burst forth, that tears are m y
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77
food night a n d day (Ps 4 I, 4), when I realize what a sorrowful change has
taken place.
I was a son of God, with heaven for m y inheritance, a co-heir of Jesus
Christ. Now I a m become a slave of sin, with hell for m y inheritance, a
co-heir of the devil. A son I was indeed, but like that reprobate who promised
to go and work in his father's vineyard, a n d never did (Mt 2 i, 28-3o ). A son
indeed, b u t one m u c h worse than that prodigal who left his father and went
to a far-off country, to squander all his patrimony in wretched excess (Lk 15,
I3) ; he at least was repentant and, once returned to his father, never left him
again. Whereas I so often make a pretence of coming back to my Father, b u t
never stay with him: straightway I return again to my former wretchedness.
I n truth I a m unworthy to be called son, or even servant - except one who
knows his master's will a n d never fulfils it, one who deserves only to be beaten
severely (Lk 12, 47). A servant indeed, but one m u c h worse than that wicked
servant who was given a talent to trade with by his master, a n d made nothing
of it, but simply hid it away (Mt 35, 24-5). Whereas I, after receiving
talents from m y Lord with which to trade, have done worse than hide them
a n d make nothing of them; I have actually used them as far as I could in a
way that was injurious a n d a reproach to m y Lord. I have squandered them
on myself, spent them wickedly; so that I must not only be deprived of them,
like that wicked a n d unprofitable servant. I must be handed over to the torturers, until I have repaid all that I squandered (Mt 18, 34).
So I see all m y wickedness piled up on me, a n immense b u r d e n crushing
me (Ps 37, 5), which will drag me down to eternal destruction, unless I
quickly rise a n d hasten with all speed to find a remedy. Nor is there any
remedy to be found which will cancel out all this wickedness, except God's
mercy alone, which outstrips all his works (Is 144 , 9). Yet m y own fearful
conscience prevents me; it says that I have committed so m a n y detestable
sins, I have gone on living this wicked life for so long, I have fallen back into
the same faults so often, that I a m not to be believed when I say that I will
a m e n d my life; that mercy is not for the likes of me. But I have an answer to
this : no matter how wickedly I have lived, or could live, my wickedness could
never overthrow God's mercy. His mercy has no limits; his goodness towards
sinners is such that he never shuts them out of his heart (I J n 3, 17). His
mercy is equal to a n d powerful enough for forgiving innumerable sins as
though they were one single sin; he can accept the m a n who has fallen into the
same sin over a n d over again as though he had sinned only once; he is much
more ready to receive the sinner than the sinner is to come to him. It is not
only that he receives with loving kindness the sinner who comes to him; he
anticipates the sinner, draws him to himself. Like that father who went out to
meet the lost prodigal on his return, the divine mercy goes out to the penitent
sinner a n d makes repentance attractive to him, sometimes by giving him new
gifts a n d gentleness, at other times by treating him with severity.
This mercy has always tempered the divine anger and his judgements and
justice, lest they prove too much for m a n to bear. It was this mercy that re-
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stored the first m a n and all his posterity - after a just condemnation - from the
state of exile a n d damnation. I t was this mercy, this fatherly love, that
reconciled the penitent David - an adulterer a n d a murderer (2 K g I2,
I 3 - I 4 ; 24, I o - I 7). I t was this mercy that overcame the divine anger against
Achab, in his wicked idolatry, once the m a n h a d humbled himself before his
L o r d (I Sam 2I, 27-9). A n d Manassses, an evil king, who angered the L o r d
more than all his predecessors by his idolatry a n d other crimes, who k i l l e d
the prophets sent him by the Lord and drenched Jerusalem with the
blood of the innocent: when at last, taken prisoner a n d subjected to various
tortures, he cried to the Lord for mercy, he was restored to his kingdom, a n d
m a d e amends for his wickedness (2 Chr 33, i o - i 3)- I t was mercy which saved
Nineveh a n d its king from the destruction the prophet foretold because of its
sins, once it h a d done penance in sackcloth and ashes, fasting a n d tears (Jon
3, i - I o ) . H o w often in the O l d Testament, did mercy turn aside j u d g e m e n t
a n d vengeance !
I t was m e r c y that brought M a g d a l e n the sinner to repentance, freed h e r
from seven devils, a n d m a d e her the first witness of the Lord's resurrection
(Lk 8, 2; J n 20, 14-i8 ). Mercy summoned M a t t h e w the tax-collector from
his counting-house, a n d m a d e him a n apostle and evangelist. I t turned Peter
from an apostate into a shepherd, the Church's pastor (Lk 22, 6i ; J n 2I,
I 5 - I 7). It cast down Paul the persecutor, a n d raised him up to be the greatest
apostle a n d teacher of the gentiles (Acts 9, I-9). To sum it all up, there was
never anyone in this world who cried out for mercy a n d was left unheard. As
the blessed Augustine puts it, if the devil himself would even now renounce
his pride a n d call for mercy, he would be pardoned.
:
I see then, m y God, that you are the consoler a n d father: far from desiring
m y destruction, you offer m e a time for repentance. Fill me then with true
penitence for m y crimes. Not the remorse of J u d a s which led him to h a n g
himself, because the heinousness of his crime brought him to despair, b u t
look at me, as you once looked at Peter so that he went out a n d wept his
bitter tears, that I too m a y go a w a y from m y sinfulness never to return to it.
None can console as you can, none is your equal in merciful love. A n d even
if I a m persuaded to go back to m y old sins or enticed to fresh sinfulness,
then, m y Lord, enlighten m y understanding with the ir~spiration of your
truth, so that I m a y ponder in m y heart what I see now: how ephemeral a n d
deceiving are sins' delights, how vile in your sight, how lasting and bitter
their torment; how wicked a n d detestable it is so to offend m y God, w h a t
shame, w h a t stupidity to fall again into the same vices d a y after day. You
know best how to teach me; breathe into m e your knowledge so that I m a y
understand that the allurements of sin are not to be compared with the j o y of
keeping clear of it; that I m a y realize how wonderful it is to conquer temptation; that no matter how difficult this m a y be at first, it becomes an easy task
through practice; attd that every good veork is re, yarded a hundredfold.
Fill me, Lord, with thoughts such as these, to make me afraid to yield to
sin, to arouse in m e the power to fulfil your commandments. Help me go out
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with the apostle Peter, so that I no longer yield to the allurements of the flesh
to which I have so often succumbed; help me reject the deceitful blandishments of the world a n d the devil's lying persuasiveness; help me to weep
bitterly, as d i d Peter, for m y past sins. Let me recall, from day to day, in
bitterness of soul, the story of m y life; rid me of the fear of h u m a n suffering,
so that I m a y willingly accept the p a i n which purifies me for m y past sins a n d
wins me merit; teach m e to be w a r y of the world's blandishments a n d prosperity, lest for a single moment I be drawn away from your service. O wonderful father a n d Lord, for the rest of m y life d r a w m e a w a y entirely from m y
miserable past; m a y I be ihll of sorrow for it all, and devote all m y strength
to glorifying you; let me praise you with all m y heart for your immense goodness; for the great gift of being fashioned in your image; for the gift of your
most precious redemption which has brought me out of suffering into glory;
for the gift of your special providence, which conferred on m e the blessing
o f baptism; for the gift of being one of your family, educated as your son a n d
heir; for the gift of m y blessed vocation through which you i m p a r t e d to m e
the learning of your faithful ones - their doctrine a n d practice; for the merciful gift of keeping me safe from so m a n y dangers; for those special a n d most
generous gifts of b o d y a n d soul; for the gift of your own patience with me,
during the long period when you p u t up with m y protracted sinfulness; for
that most intimate gift secretly impressed on m y heart, which has helped me
to know myself, so that, at the last, I can rejoice in you, praise you and glorify
you: a n d for the soverign blessing of eternal predestination by which from
the first - as I believe - you have chosen me for eternal glory. M a y the blessed
Trinity, one God, Father, Son a n d holy Spirit, through the intercession of the
glorious Virgin, of St Cuthbert a n d all the saints, grant me this. Amen.
RECOMMENDED
READING
S C R I P T U R E . T h e long-awaited english version of the Jerusalem Bible has
at last m a d e its appearance. Its impact will not, of course, be as considerable
as that of the original french edition which was a completely new text superceding the old Crampon. W e have now a variety of texts in the vernacular,
a n d it is unlikely that there will ever be an end to the arguments about
preferences for one over another. But the great advantage of the Jerusalem
Bible is its invaluable system of cross-references a n d notes, and the excellent
introductions. All these make it a very useful book for the bible student a n d
as such it fulfils a very real need. A n Index of Bible Themes has been added,
an excellent idea; but unfortunately there is some lack of correspondence
between the headings in the themes a n d the actual notes, which were
translated from french.
God and His Image by Dominique Barth61emy, O.P., is an original contribution to biblical theolog3r. Beginning with the problematic of the Book of
J o b , the author then retraces the whole spiritual itinerary of the O l d Testament: man, m a d e in the image of God, defaced b y sin a n d no longer able to
recognize his prototype, is remoulded by G o d who progressively reveals his
face to man. The style of writing puts this book well within the reach of the
non-specialist, a n d m a n y will find it a more interesting introduction to the
bible than others written in a more formal style.
T H E O L O G Y . Religion in Practice, by Anthony Levi, S.J., has its subtitle, An Outline of Christian Religious Teaching in the Light of the Religious
Relevance of Human Standards of Conduct. F r Levi says that his book is an
a t t e m p t 'to reconcile the climate of liberal opinion with christian orthodoxy'.
At the present time, such attempts are welcome a n d laudable, and we must
thank F r Levi for his contribution, a n d for the encouragement he has given to
others. However, some m a y regret that F r Levi has severed what he calls
'christian orthodoxy' from its biblical roots a n d its efflorescence in Vatican I I ,
a n d has also felt it necessary to confine himself within the narrow limits of
a theological language which is rapidly being discarded. This might give a
false impression that christian orthodoxy is the seventeenth century scholasticism which is F r Levi's special competence. T h e reconciliation which he
is striving for in his book would have been easier h a d he not adopted this
confining position, but h a d taken his stand on a more ample tradition.
In Sin, Liberty and Law, Louis Monden, S.J., treats of the basic f u n d a m e n tals of morality: the sense of sin, h u m a n liberty and moral law. I t is rare to
find a book which combines so happily a deep awareness of modern currents
of thought and an ability to explain these with great clarity and simplicity.
The author refuses the facile solution which hides behind the assertion that
the modern world has lost the sense of sin. Its moral conscience m a y have
RECOMMENDED
READING
8I
become less sensitive on certain points, but there is a growing sensitiveness
on others, which must be seen as a development of liberty. The book is
especially good on situation ethics a n d gives one of the clearest a n d soundest
evaluations of this question that we have read. The pastoral tone of the work
will be especially a p p r e c i a t e d b y priests a n d educators. W e recommend
it highly.
Authority in the Church by J o h n L. McKenzie, S.J., is an investigation into
the true nature of authority in the Church. Beginning with a fine analysis of
authority in the New Testament, F r M c K e n z i e then goes on to reflect on the
development a n d also the degeneration of this notion in the history of the
Church. l I e emphasizes that the concept of authority in the Church must be
understood in terms of the unique nature of the ecclesial community, not
according to the pattern of purely h u m a n societies. The book has all the
clarity of thought a n d statement that we have come to expect from the
author, a n d is its own recommendation.
Formation in Faith by F r Bernard Cooke, S.J., is brief, well planned, full
of good ideas a n d very readable. It shows the essential structure of faith in the
bible, before going on to study the development of faith in the christian life
of the individual a n d the community. This is very sound theology presented
in an immediately assimilable way, which should give the book a wide appeal.
The Vision of the Past, by Teilhard de Chardin, contains some of his most
revealing essays: developments of themes adverted to in the Phenomenon of
Man, concerning the geological, biological a n d spiritual evolution of man.
All this makes this particular volume one of the most important of Teilhard's
works. The New Pentecost, b y F r James Fitzpatrick, does not, unfortunately,
quite fulfil its early promise. T h e author tends to lose his thought in an
exuberance of vocabulary, a n d the reader will find it difficult to keep track
of a consistent theme.
M I S S I O L O G Y . One of the best books published in recent years was F r
Jacques Dournes' Dieu aime les Paigns; it is a great pleasure to welcome this
excellent english translation. F r Dournes gives an account of a unique
missionary experience with a primitive tribe in Vietnam. I I e went amongst
them without knowing a word of their language, whilst they Were totally
ignorant of christianity. Patiently and in depth F r D0urnes lived out a
whole process of evangelization which the b o o k describes. T h a t is enough to
make. very interesting reading; but even more valuable is F r Dournes'
ability to reflect on his experience, a n d to prolong it into a real missiology.
T h e result is a book which will be of immense service to all who are engaged
in the Church's mission to the pagans, including the pagans of the modern
u r b a n jungles. God in Vietnam is the sort of book which one wants to read
a n d read again.
CATECHETICS.
'But what are we supposed to teach children nowadays' ?,
is a daily cry of anguish from teachers and parents. Heralding Christ, by Sister
82
RECOMMENDED READING
M a r g a r e t of Jesus, goes a very long way towards answering that question.
A n d it does even more: it shows how the question should be asked. T h e book
is based upon a course for lay catechists given b y the author in eleven different
centres in England a n d Wales. P a r t I explains the approach to catechetics;
P a r t I I gives an outline of the m a i n themes of catechetics in the light of the
principles exp]ained in P a r t I. A t the end of each chapter there is a selective
bibliography, questions a n d exercises. I t would be h a r d to better this work
for sheer competence, simplicity a n d that awareness of practical detail which
can only come from great experience. This book is a must for all who have
anything to do with catechetics. Living in Christ is the second volume of the
Young Christians T o d a y series. I t deals with worship, the liturgy a n d t h e
sacraments, and follows the same methodology as the first volume. T h e text
is sound, but it is regrettable that some of the illustrations, notably those of
the altar a n d God's people r o u n d the altar, are pictorial contradictions of
the text.
S P I R I T U A L I T Y . IgnatiusLoyola and Francis de Sales is a useful contribution
to the history of spirituality. F r Ch~/rmot stresses the fundamental ideas of
abandonment, discernment a n d charity in a comparison which is sound
without being over-technical, a n d which comes from a deep understanding of
both men. Jesus Christ, b y Yves Congar, is a spiritual reflection on Christ
the image of the invisible Father. I n the first chapter, reprinted from an
article in Maison-Dieu, F r Congar states his theme a n d develops it under two
m a i n headings: Christ our mediator a n d Christ the Lord. T h e book is a fine
example of the translation of dogma into spirituality, a n d is spiritual reading
at its best. T h e glossary of difficult terms is a h a p p y idea which more of our
modern writers might well imitate. W e note the appearance as a Deacon
Book of F r L. Boase's Prayer of Faith, which m a n y have found so useful in the
past. Also out as a p a p e r b a c k from F o n t a n a is Austin FarTer's wellknown
statement of the problem of evil Love Almighty and Ills Unlimited. Finally there
has been a second american edition of J e a n Guitton's famous Human Love.
S O C I O L O G Y . Stigma. The Experience of Disability contains twelve essays
by people who are disabled in one w a y or another through illness. T h e
authors state quite simply their own attitude to their situation and give an
account of the problems they have to face. There is no striving for effect a n d
no cheap emotionalism but a plain account of difficulties. This is a disturbing
book; for it shows the inadequacy of the welfare state in its handling of the
problem of the disabled. Well worth reading.
B I O G R A P H Y . Conscientious objection is a more than topical subject,
a n d those concerned with it will benefit by reading In Solitary Witness. This is
the account of the life a n d death of Franz J/iggerstatter, an austrian peasant
who refused to cooperate in any way with the Nazi p a r t y and was ultimately
executed for refusing to fight for Hitler. J~ggerst/itter firmly believed that
RECOMMENDED
READING
83
the whole Nazi movement was utterly unchristian a n d died for his belief in
the spirit of a christian martyr. W h a t makes the story so extraordinary is the
very simplicity of J~iggerst~itter's own background. Where did this farmer
from a tiny, off-the-map, village find the insight a n d the courage to give his
life when all around him were finding reasonable excuses for themselves ? The
book states a problem. M a n y readers will disagree with J~ggerst~itter,
others will find him a n inspiration; but all will find this a fascinating story.
Louis Francois Marin Fosse by Fr William Lawson, S.J., is a n account of the
founder of the Congregation of Christian Education. It gives a valuable
insight into the state of the Church in France over the revolutionary a n d
empire periods a n d casts light on the development of education. The book
is written with perception a n d h u m o u r a n d is very readable.
T h e follo~_ng books have been received:
Adams, Michael (ed): Vatican II on Ecumenism (Scepter ins 6d, pp ix 7 paperback).
Airing yon Geusau, Leo (ed) : Ecumenism and the Roman Catholic Church (Sheed & Ward Ios
6d, pp x86 paperback).
Barth61emy, Dominique: God and His Image (Chapman 3os, pp I99).
Basset, Bernard, S.J. : Priest in Paradise (Burns Oates 12s 6d, pp Io4).
Billet, Bernard, O.S.B. : Lourdes (Lethielleux 6oF, pp 560 paperback).
Boase, Leonard, S.J.: The Prayer of Faith (Chapman i2s 6d, pp i47 paperback).
Bourke, Ludovic, F.M.S.: Theology of Confirmation and Teaching Brother's Vocation (Descl6e
i8s 6d, pp I52 paperback).
Bullen, Anthony: Growing in Christ (Chapman 7s 6d, pp 60 paperback).
Carthusian, a: Christ the Vision (Burns Oates 5s, pp 85 paperback).
Charmot, F., S. J. : Ignatius Loyola & Francis de Sales (B, Herder 38s, pp 25I).
Congar, Yves, O.P. : Jesus Christ (Chapman 25s, pp 223).
Cooke, Bernard, S. J. :Formation of Faith (Gill 9s 6d, pp 113 paperback).
Corblshley, Thomas, S. J.: The Contemporary Christian (Chapman o5s, pp 2oo).
de Surgy, Paul: The Myste(y of Salvation (Sheed & Ward I2s 6d, pp 242 paperback).
Dournes, Jacques: God in Vietnam (Chapman 3os, pp 203).
Dr&ze, A., S. J. : Living in Christ (Chapman 8s 6d, pp 2o9 paperback).
Etudes Mariales La Vierge Marie: (Lethielleux i8, 5oF, pp i32 paperback).
Farter, Austin: Love Almighty and Ills Unlimited (Fontana 8s 6d, pp 19I paperback).
Flood, Edmund, O.S.B., Olsen, P., Lance, D., Rhymer, J., (eds) : Easter, Who is my
.Areighbour?, Christian Sex Education, What is Marriage?, Paul the Man, Using the Bible,
Creation (Living Parish Pamphlets 6d each).
Fitzpatrick, James: A New Pentecost (B. Herder 36s, pp 2o8).
Galarneau,Joffre: RendBazin et le Probl~me Social (LethieUeux 19F 2o, pp ~88 paperback).
Gongalves, Louis de CAmara: Mdmorial (Descldede Brouwer 24o FB, pp 288 paperback).
Griffiths, Bede: Christian Ashram (Darton, Longman & Todd I5S, pp 249 paperback).
Guitton, Jean: Human Love (B. Herder 36s, pp 245).
HaIloran, J. D. and Brothers, Joan (eds): Uses ofSodology (Sheed & Ward I2s, pp I78
paperback).
Helm-Pirgo, Marian: Virgin Mary Queenof Poland (Polish Institute i3s, pp 31 paperback).
Heuser, A. and Hoare, Robert J.: Christ Through the Ages (Chapman ios 6d, pp 134
paperback).
Hodgson, Phyllis and Leigey, Gabriel M.: The Orchard of Syon (Oxford University Press
84s, pp 421).
Hmxt, Paul (ed): Stigma (Chapman 25s, pp i76).
84
RECOMMENDED
READING
Hurley, Dermot: Everyday Prayerbook (Chapman 5s, pp 18I paperback).
Jackson, J. M.: Human Values and the Economie System (Darton, Longman & Todd 3s, pp 6 3
paperback).
Jones, Alexander (ed) : The Jerusalem Bible (Darton, Longman & Todd 84s, pp 498).
Jones, Clifford M. : New Testament Illustrations (Cambridge University Press =5s~ pp I89).
Levi, Anthony, S. J. : Religion in Practice (Oxford University Press Sos, pp 2o8).
Margaret, Sister Mary, O.P.: Four Saints of Ireland (Chapman Igs 6d, pp I26).
Margaret of Jesus, Sister, D.H.G. : Heralding Christ (Chapman I8s, pp 251 paperback).
McKenzie, John L., S. J.: Authority in the Church (Chapman 25s, pp I84).
Merton, Thomas: Redeeming the Time (Burns Oates I2s 6d, pp I87 paperback).
Monden, Louis, S.J.: Sin, Liberty and Law (Chapman 3os pp i8i).
Murphy, Dennis, M.S.C.: The Abostle of Corinth (Campion Press, Melbourne $3.9 o,
pp 305 paperback).
Onate, Antonio Jimenez, S. J. : El Origen de la Combania de ffesns (Institutum Historicum
pp I88 paperback).
Swanston, Hamish: The Problem of Evil (Darton, Longman & Todd 3s, pp 61 paperback).
Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre, S. J. : The Vision of the Past (Collins Sos, pp 285).
The Psalms (Collins 5s, pp 25= paperback).
Wicker Brian: Culture and Theology (Sheed & Ward ISs 6d, pp 305 paperback).
Wyszynski, Cardinal: A Strong Man Armed (Chapman 85s, pp I87).
Zahn, Gordon: In Solitary Witness (Chapman 3os, pp 277).
SIGLA
OLD TESTAMENT
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Gen
Exod
Lev
Num
Deut
Jos
Judges
Jg
Ruth
Ruth
I Samuel (I Kings) i Sam
II Samuel (II Kings) 2 Sam
I Kings (III Kings) i Kg
II Kings (IV Kings) 2 Kg
I Chronicles
(I Paralipomenon) i Chr
II Chronicles
(II Paralipomenon) 2 Chr
Ezra (I Esdras)
Nehemiah (II Esdras)
Tobias
Judith
Esther
Job
Psalms
Proverbs
Qohelet (Ecclesiastes)
Canticle of Canticles
Wisdom
Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)
Isaiah
Jeremiah
Lamentations
Baruch
Ezr
Neh
Tob
Jud
Est
Job
Ps
Prov
Qoh
Cant
Wis
Sir
Isal
Jet
Lam
Bar
Ezekiel
Ezek
Daniel
Dan
Hosea (Osee)
Hos
Joel
Joel
Amos
Amos
Obadiah (Abdias)
Obad
Jonah
Jon
Micah
Mic
Nahum
Nah
Habakkuk
Hab
Zephaniah (Sophonias)Zeph
Haggai (Aggeus)
Hag
Zechariah
Zech
Malachi
Mal
I Machabees
i Macc
II Machabees
2 Macc
NEW TESTAMENT
Matthew
Mark
Luke
John
Acts of the Apostles
Paul to the Romans
I Corinthians
II Corinthians
Galatians
Mt
Mk
Lk
Jn
Acts
Rom
I Cor
2 Cor
Gal
Ephesians
Philippians
Colossians
I Thessalonians
II Thessalonians
I Timothy
II Timothy
Titus
Philemon
Eph
Phil
Col
I Thess
2 Thess
i Tim
2 Tim
Tit
Phm
To the Hebrews
Heb
The Epistle of James Jas
I Peter
I Pet
II Peter
2 Pet
I John
i Jn
II John
2 Jn
III John
3 Jn
Jude
Jude
The Apocalypse of
St John
Apoc
FATHERS
Patrologia Latina (Migne) PL
Patrologia Graeca (Migne) PG
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