Crisis: The Cross complete absurdity

[BarbaraTherese]

I had a similar crisis a while back and my spiritual director affirmed my understanding of the cross. It was not the crucifixion per se which is an evil which saved us, rather it was the obedience of Jesus to the Will of God though it meant death on a cross. Jesus human life had unfolded as it did with the consequence of that human life that He was condemned to death and crucified…if The Father had rescued Him from crucifixion and the consequences of His human life, then Jesus’ life would not have unfolded in the normal course as most of our lives do. Jesus fully identifies with us and lives out His life to the end though that end meant a cruel indeed death on a cross.
Other than that, St. Paul tells us that the cross will be a stumbling block for many.
Intrinsic to all human life is suffering…Jesus through His Cross has sanctified it and made it holy and redemptive “we make up in our own bodies what was lacking in the Sufferings of Christ” (St. Paul) which is a totally awesome and mind boggling matter.
smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/16/16_14_5.gifBlessings - Barb

 

[anthony022071]

Well, I went to confession today to confess suicidal thoughts. I have a mental disorder called schizoaffective disorder with which I was diagnosed two years ago while trying to complete my master’s in theology. I have $48.000 in debt and high psychiatric medical insurance and mediations to pay for. And right now I am working as a cashier at a grocery store, living with my parents, unable to support myself. I also have insomnia which has kept me from getting a better job. And I am such a painfully reserved person that I don’t know what kind of job in teaching or ministry I could really get with my degree. The good things in my life now are my faith and my family… but my faith could be helping me a lot more than it is. Spending most of my waking hours doing something I find meaningless is no way for a person to live. Those are the crosses I am bearing. I face a life of emptiness, intellectual stagnation, financial dilemmas and boredom.

You should pray continuously throughout the day for strength,clarity of mind,direction,an increase of faith,hope,and love,relief from anxiety and depression. You should also attend morning mass as often as possible and receive the Eucharist. And as soon as you wake up each morning,pray – so that your worries and burdens will not rush upon you even before you get out of bed. Don’t even get out of bed until you have prayed enough so that you feel that your worries and dread will not have the better of you throughout the day. Get in the habit of constant prayer,so that you become dependent on God’s help. That is what God wants from you anyway. I know from my own experience that constant prayer and receiving the Eucharist daily will mitigate mental suffering,no matter how horrible,and will clarify and fortify the mind,so that one is better prepared to deal with worldly problems,because the dread of them is removed.

 

[RobNY]

Suffering is not some kind of currency.

You might be surprised to know that you agree with Joseph Ratzinger, the man who is our current pope. In his book, Introduction to Christianity he discusses the atonement and Christ’s sacrifice.

He says, “the Cross is not a matter of accumulation of physical pain, as if its redemptive value consisted in its involving the largest possible amount of physical torture.”

“Why,” Ratzinger asks, “should God take pleasure in the sufferings of his creature, indeed his own Son, or see in it the currency with which reconciliation needs to be purchased from him?”

Suffice it to say, Ratzinger utterly rejects such a view! “The fundamental principle of the sacrifice is not destruction but love.” The only currency that gives anything it meaning is love. Remember Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, what matters if I have not love?

He consistently asserts that the Cross was not a work of expiation offered to a wrathful God, but, “that foolish love of God” which, “gives itself away” to, “save man.”

“Love’s free Yes is the only thing for which God must wait—the only worship or “sacrifice” that can have any meaning.” It is thus that, “this element of pain is a secondary one, resulting only from a preceding primary one, from which it draws its meaning”

“It is an unworthy concept of God,” Ratzinger says, “to imagine for oneself a God who demands the slaughter of his Son to pacify his wrath.”

Note Pope Pius XII in Haurietis aquas, who said,

“the mystery of our divine Redeemer is fundamentally a mystery of love; the mystery, namely, of that love of Christ for his heavenly father by which he offers him the sacrifice of the cross in a spirit of love and obedience and achieves the superabundant and infinite satisfaction”

Jeanette-- it is understandable that if you thought that the worth of the atonement consisted in physical torture that you would find it hollow. But that’s a fiction, the worth of the atonement consists in the infinite love given by a perfectly holy man.

Thomistic theology also makes this sharp distinction and insists on the value of love. In an excellent little book, by Philippe de la Trinite called, “What is Redemption?” this is outlined exceedingly well. Let me give you some quotes:

We must understand that, “it is not punishment but love which makes satisfaction what it is, essentially” (Trinité 75). That is to say, “it is the loving acceptance of punishment for the love of God which gives it whatever value of satisfaction it may possess” (Trinité 75). “The source of merit is not suffering and difficulty but the love of charity” (Trinité 122). Hence we must dissipate the idea that it is, “punishment *qua *punishment” that satisfies for sin, in the sense that penal substitution would have, but, “punishment qua satisfaction” which has as its basis in an, “infinitely meritorious love” (Trinité 75, 122).

Jeanette-- hopefully this can help you make sense of our infinitely loving God. The idea that the atonement has its worth more in suffering than in love, unfortunately, seems to derive from a caricature of John Calvin’s view of atonement. However, it is not the Catholic view. God is love. Rejoice in that. If you have any questions or comments, please tell me. God bless.

-Rob

 

[JeannetteCML]

Jesus human life had unfolded as it did with the consequence of that human life that He was condemned to death and crucified…if The Father had rescued Him from crucifixion and the consequences of His human life, then Jesus’ life would not have unfolded in the normal course as most of our lives do. Jesus fully identifies with us and lives out His life to the end though that end meant a cruel indeed death on a cross.

That is something I can agree with.

 

[JeannetteCML]

blessedstar,

Thank you for keeping me in your prayers and for your words on my thread. By the way, I didn’t mean to say I felt insulted by you about being “tested.” I was responding to someone else’s post --and then I deleted it.

It’s just that the whole idea of being “tested” makes me feel like some kind of freewill experiment or like one of God’s servants that He can’t trust yet. Although, I do understand the idea of purifying one’s spirit and ridding it of unwanted tendencies.

I don’t doubt God’s wisdom if there is suffering in the world. Mine is just a tiny reasoning process in the face of the Eternal God Almighty. But I do put the challenge of the mystery of suffering to theology, “faith seeking understanding.” It’s hard for me to have a solid spirituality when I don’t understand something.

You are right in saying that my confusion centers more around the origin of suffering. The explanation in Genesis is a difficulty for me. This is because it doesn’t make sense to me that all suffering was the result of our first parents’ sin. As I understand, animals were already undergoing pain and death in some sense throughout all of evolution before humans. And humans are part of the animal kingdom, undergoing a lot of the same natural processes. The “tendency to sin” could just be a vestigal form of prior instinct. But I can understand a loss of grace and the introduction of spiritual death. And I do believe it was possible for God to spare man from death had he not sinned, giving to him a glorified body after being ready to eat from the “Tree of Life.” But I don’t know.

Sorry if that was long. I just wanted to honestly answer your question “Does that help at all?”

 

[JeannetteCML]

Rob, your post was very refreshing. I had kind of lost sight of the primacy of love. It’s very interesting to hear about Ratzinger’s writings. I might read his Introduction to Christianity some time. And I ordered the other little book because I’m curious about it. I will focus more on love and practice the part where you don’t “take into account a wrong suffered.” Thanks. That helps my spirituality a lot!

 

[JeannetteCML]

Thanks to everyone else who posted also. I have been finding each of your comments helpful in a unique way.

 

[RobNY]

Rob, your post was very refreshing. I had kind of lost sight of the primacy of love. It’s very interesting to hear about Ratzinger’s writings. I might read his Introduction to Christianity some time. And I ordered the other little book because I’m curious about it. I will focus more on love and practice the part where you don’t “take into account a wrong suffered.” Thanks. That helps my spirituality a lot!

Speaking of the, “primacy of love,” Philippe de la Trinite culls a beautiful quote from St. Therese the Little Flower’s, “The Story of a Soul.”

Here is some of it:

“… for me his infinite mercy is the quality that stands out in my life, and when I contemplate and adore his other perfections, it’s against this background of mercy all the time. They all seem to have a dazzling outline of love; even God’s justice, and perhaps his justice more than any other attribute of his, seems to have love for its setting”

I highly recommend reading St. Therese’s autobiography, by the way. God’s love shines through her beautiful sincerity. There is nothing inaccessible about one of the loftiest of the Church’s mystical saints. In this particular passage she tells of how she offered herself as a, “Victim of Divine Love” to be wholly swallowed up and consumed in the flames of His love.

And that’s exactly where I’d like to bring this-- understanding the doctrine on God’s love in relation to mystical theology (experiential contact with God’s love) and prayer sheds an entirely different light on the doctrines of God’s love.

From what I’ve read-- and I say, what I’ve read, because I am no contemplative-- God calls all of us to the highest peaks of sanctity. He calls us to an awesome holiness. “Be ye holy for I the Lord am holy.” It is mind numbing to even think of. But here’s the deal-- God doesn’t leave us ill-equipped to do so. He wants us to enter deeply into the mystery of His divine love, until, like St. Therese we long only to live for Him and in Him. In the more sophisticated words of theology-speak, Fr. Reginald Garrigou Lagrange says, “we may at least infer the nonextraordinary character of the infused contemplation of the mysteries of faith and of the union with God which results therefrom.” In other words-- God starts us with the seed of eternal life in baptism, and he does not withhold from us the graces necessary to get there.

Or, as Thomas Merton quite simply exposited:

There are so many Christians who do not appreciate the magnificent dignity of their vocation to sanctity, to the knowledge, love and service of God.

There are so many Christians who do not realize what possibilities god has placed in the life of Christian perfection-- what possibilities for joy in the knowledge and love of Him.

There are so many Christians who have practically no idea of the immense love of God for them, and of the power of that Love to do them good, to bring them happiness.

Why do we think of contemplation, infused contemplation, mystical prayer, as something essentially strange and esoteric reserved for a small class of almost unnatural beings and prohibited to everyone else? It is perhaps because we have forgotten that contemplation is the work of the Holy Ghost acting on our souls through His gifts of Wisdom and Understanding with special intensity to increase and perfect our love for Him. These gifts are part of the normal equipment of Christian sanctity. They are given to all in Baptism, and if they are given it is presumably because God wants them developed. their development will always remain the free gift of God and it is true that His wise Providence sees fit to develop them less in some saints than in others. But it is also true that God often measures His gifts by our desire to receive them, and by our cooperation with His grace, and the Holy Spirit will not waste any of His gifts on people who have little or no interest in them.

It would be a great mistake to think that mystical contemplation necessarily brings with it a whole litany of weird phenomena-- ecstasies, raptures, stigmata and so on. These belong to quite a different order of things. They are “charismatic” gifts, gratiae gratis datae, and they are not directly ordered to the sanctification of the one who received them. Infused contemplation, on the contrary, is a powerful means of sanctification. It is the work of love and nothing is more effective in increasing our love for God. In fact, infused contemplation is intimately connected with the pure and perfect love of god which is God’s greatest gift to the soul. It is a deep an intimate knowledge of God by a union of love-- a union in which we learn things about Him that those who have not received such a gift will never discover until they enter heaven.

cont.

 

[RobNY]

Therefore, if anyone should ask, “Who may desire this gift and pray for it?” the answer is obvious: everybody.

But there is only one condition. If you desire intimate union with God you must be willing to pay the price for it. The price is small enough. In fact it is not even a price at all: it only seems to be so with us. We find it difficult to give up our desire for things that can never satisfy us in order to purchase the One Good in Whom is all our joy-- and in Whom, moreover, we get back everything else that we have renounced besides!

And so, if you want to understand the love of God, I think one has to experience it, really. I’m new at all this too, so I’ve got no real advantage here. The idea is that through normal prayer (meditation) God gradually opens one up to contemplation. The book I posted an excerpt from is from, “What is Contemplation?” by Thomas Merton, which is a book which is very easy to read, and very short—an excellent introduction to the issue. I’ve also read, “Fire Within: St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila and the Gospel on Prayer,” by Fr. Thomas Dubay, which is also an excellent introduction to their thought—although Fr. Dubay’s book is much longer, and hits some things that Merton doesn’t touch at all in detail. They’re both good reads. Ultimately though, they’re best used as preparation to read Sts. John or Teresa on their own, I’m reading the Ascent of Mount Carmel right now which is excellent. Of course, I prefer the beauty of his formal theology more. I’m not very familiar with St. Teresa, but perhaps you might prefer her less formal style (she had no formal theological training, as far as I know— her knowledge was from her love of God, a theology superior to any manmade system).

Of course, the goal of all of this isn’t to have read the most, but to have loved the most. And that means living a life of prayer, a life of self-denial, and a life of the sacraments. I think we’re all working on that. God bless.

-Rob

 

[BarbaraTherese]

We have saints, though people of prayer, who never became mystics nor ever attained to purely contemplative prayer.

Suffering which not one of us can avoid, for it is a condition of human existence, when united to The Passion of Christ no matter how minute that suffering may be becomes redemptive and “makes up in our own bodies what was lacking in the Sufferings of Christ”…which is an astounding matter - that anything could be lacking in His Sufferings. In other words suffering united to Christ’s is intrinsic to our Baptismal call. The Cross is our symbol and we begin our prayers with the Sign of The Cross on our own bodies. As St. Therese pointed out, at first she found suffering very hard to undergo…love of The Cross (her sufferings united to thoseof Christ) came later. Spiritual life is change and growth as God may will…and until the day we die if we persevere through Grace.
The Cross of Christ has made what would otherwise be meaningless (human suffering) a holy matter through Baptism and united to His Cross and Sufferings. While the conscious uniting of sufferings to the Cross is a great Grace…as long as we are in the state of Grace, our sufferings are redemptive and are united to The Sufferings of Christ by Grace - God’s free and gratuitious gift.

http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/16/16_4_12.gifBlessings…

• Barb

 

[blessedstar]

We have saints, though people of prayer, who never became mystics nor ever attained to purely contemplative prayer.

Suffering which not one of us can avoid, for it is a condition of human existence, when united to The Passion of Christ no matter how minute that suffering may be becomes redemptive and “makes up in our own bodies what was lacking in the Sufferings of Christ”…which is an astounding matter - that anything could be lacking in His Sufferings. In other words suffering united to Christ’s is intrinsic to our Baptismal call. The Cross is our symbol and we begin our prayers with the Sign of The Cross on our own bodies. As St. Therese pointed out, at first she found suffering very hard to undergo…love of The Cross (her sufferings united to thoseof Christ) came later. Spiritual life is change and growth as God may will…and until the day we die if we persevere through Grace.
The Cross of Christ has made what would otherwise be meaningless (human suffering) a holy matter through Baptism and united to His Cross and Sufferings. While the conscious uniting of sufferings to the Cross is a great Grace…as long as we are in the state of Grace, our sufferings are redemptive and are united to The Sufferings of Christ by Grace - God’s free and gratuitious gift.

http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/16/16_4_12.gifBlessings…

• Barb

Beautiful post Barb.

In Baptism we die and rise in Christ Jesus, so in life we are continually dying to self and being recreated in the likeness of Christ Jesus in the hope of eternal rising again in Him.

E.g. Dying to self:

1 Putting others before our ‘self’.
2 Physical suffering of the ‘self’
3 Mental suffering of the ‘self’
4 Spiritual suffering of the ‘self’
5 Bearing wrongs patiently within the ‘self’
6 Surrendering the ‘self’ out of love and not servitude to Jesus united to His Cross for His glory, for our transformation in Him and for the transformation of others.

The whole of life is prayer united to the Highest Prayer of the Church the Holy Mass where we offer ourselves in the symbol of water in the gifts we bring of bread and wine and unite ourselves to Christ Jesus upon the Cross and here we are united to the Risen Christ also and all by His grace. And we do this thanking God that He has given us something to offer to unite ourselves with Him in a similar offering of self, love and sacrifice.

 

[blessedstar]

Following on from Barb’s thoughts here is a piece taken from a letter to her mother from Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity- Carmelite

’I rejoice,’ said St. Paul, ‘to make up in my flesh what is
lacking in the passion of Jesus Christ for the sake of His
body the Church.’ Oh. how your mothers heart should leap
for divine joy in thinking that the Master has deigned to
choose your daughter, the fruit of your womb, to associate
her with His great work of redemption, and that He suffers
in her. as it were, an extension of His passion. The bride
belongs to the Bridegroom, and mine has taken me. He
wants me to be another humanity for Him in which He can
still suffer for the glory of His Father, to help the needs of His
Church: this thought has done me so much good."

Therefore when we suffer it is also Jesus who suffers with us and in us. Jesus is always with us.

 

[Therese_Martin]

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