Exaltation of the Cross
The Worth of Sufferings
During the recent hurricanes and floods, we watched on TV as the muddy and debris-filled streams caused mudslides, as farmland lost topsoil, and as marshes were silted over. Roads and bridges were damaged or gone, homes lost, towns destroyed, and even when the rain finally stopped, the turmoil and destruction was not over.
The water still had to drain off into the rivers. We saw these rising higher and higher, and the flood crest was reported moving toward more towns downstream. People were rendered homeless, isolated, or stranded. Some of them might have wondered why me, why here, but I really did not hear any of that.
Back during the 9/11 clean-up many were angry with God, and with good reason. Yet we know the majority of people started asking about and caring for one another and quickly began picking up the pieces of life torn apart in New York City. Many reflected on how deeply they were moved by the widespread and helpful responses of ordinary people. They expressed their sadness and the realization this was really a crime against humanity and a global trauma. It seemed to be a summation of all of the world’s terrorism.
The monsignor who is pastor in Brooklyn had dozens of funerals then, and then more a month later from the crash a block from his church of a plane with 260 passengers. Someone asked if it was all over yet. He replied that it’ll never be over for his people; there is an ongoing role there because of the gospel: “We’re just at the beginning of this and still learning,” he said. “God is calling us out of tribalism into a different understanding.” He might have added, “The world is now one;” he may have felt, not “Why is this happening here,” but “How are we being challenged to live?”
For some the answer lies in disillusionment or fighting, or we can strive to be instruments of peace and bringers of light, allowing room for God’s grace and its own outcome while doing our best.
Recently I happened to remark to an army veteran who was camping on Lake George that my nephew was out of boot camp and in special training at some obscure location. Knowing how suffering from the war has affected so many, I expressed concern and alarm at how this will affect him.
Without hesitation he replied that this is what my nephew wants to do, that he was not forced into it, and so he is more than likely to come through intact.
There may be some truth to this, and it is a tribute to courage and dedication, but when it comes to the indescribable dehumanizing events of war, I still suspect, as some have reported, that no one returns unharmed, even the true warrior.
There was a story in the NY Times of two reporters who felt driven to write and film the dangerous events in conflict zones around the world. They were together for a while, they broke up, then desperate to retain some humanity and hope they decided to get married, go home, and have a baby. Knowing the war will always be there, and their child will grow up all too quickly, she stayed home with the baby. He returned to Egypt and was wounded by a sniper, and later she too returned to that job.
On a different level, a letter to the editor in the NYT referred to the review of a book about the high energy level found in so many well-known figures, saying this definitely works to the person’s and society’s benefit, but also sometimes it can be too much to handle. Psychologists certainly have explanations and theories about public figures, but what many analysts overlook, he wrote, is the universal and inevitable presence of suffering, especially from childhood, underlying so much of what we see in the human drama. Parents may raise children well—and they grow up depressed. Others don’t get it together and grow up filled with hurt and hatred “for the enemy” out there.
I was kind of surprised to see there such consideration about woundedness in people as the source of behavior.
In the gospels the Lord himself did not try to explain the meaning of suffering, but he did show us how to act in the face of it. He willingly gave himself to it for the sake of his people, for the sake of divine compassion and the healing and renewal of our existence and the world.
He taught, as we heard, that only by losing our life can we gain it—or is it better to say, only when we give without self-inflation or expectations for the outcome, do we reach that serenity of not trying to be in control—a terrifying thought, evoking images of disaster.
Gaining and losing life are contradictory elements in human experience, and carrying the cross seems a steep climb toward a bitter death. But Jesus was instructing his disciples how to cope with life in a new way. That way is very focused, and the cost of this treasure reaches deep into us.
The sign of the cross was an ancient and sacred sign of radical self-giving and self-emptying which Jesus pointed to and carried out —like a whole burnt-offering, to use ritual language. “Whoever is near me is near fire; whoever is far from me is far from the kingdom.” By using this sign we choose to use God’s ways, above our own reactions, even though, as Isaiah said, we groan and sigh, from affliction and distress, at the horrors taking place now.
What is at stake by this hard saying is something death cannot touch. Even the centurion who watched Jesus die on the cross saw it, beyond simply admiration: “This was truly God’s Son.” Only within the mystery of his suffering is Jesus the bringer of peace and life, confirmed when the disciples see he is risen.
Brother Marc |
