Salvation and Sorrow

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today, the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows,  challenge us to contemplate the coexistence of suffering and sorrow with the journey to full life in Jesus.

St Mary's Basilica

 

The reading from the First Letter of Timothy expresses Paul’s gratitude for Mercy.

* [1:12–17] Present gratitude for the Christian apostleship leads Paul to recall an earlier time when he had been a fierce persecutor of the Christian communities (cf. Acts 26:9–11) until his conversion by intervention of divine mercy through the appearance of Jesus. This and his subsequent apostolic experience testify to the saving purpose of Jesus’ incarnation. The fact of his former ignorance of the truth has not kept the apostle from regarding himself as having been the worst of sinners (1 Tm 1:15). Yet he was chosen to be an apostle, that God might manifest his firm will to save sinful humanity through Jesus Christ (1 Tm 1:16). The recounting of so great a mystery leads to a spontaneous outpouring of adoration (1 Tm 1:17).

* [1:15] This saying is trustworthy: this phrase regularly introduces in the Pastorals a basic truth of early Christian faith; cf. 1 Tm 3:1; 4:9; 2 Tm 2:11; Ti 3:8. (1 Timothy, CHAPTER 1 | USCCB, n.d.)

The CCCB offers a reading from Hebrews that identifies obedience through suffering.

* [5:7] He offered prayers…to the one who was able to save him from death: at Gethsemane (cf. Mk 14:35), though some see a broader reference (see note on Jn 12:27).

* [5:8] Son though he was: two different though not incompatible views of Jesus’ sonship coexist in Hebrews, one associating it with his exaltation, the other with his preexistence. The former view is the older one (cf. Rom 1:4). (Hebrews, CHAPTER 5 | USCCB, n.d.)

Psalm 16 is a song of Trust and Security in God.

* [Psalm 16] In the first section, the psalmist rejects the futile worship of false gods (Ps 16:2–5), preferring Israel’s God (Ps 16:1), the giver of the land (Ps 16:6). The second section reflects on the wise and life-giving presence of God (Ps 16:7–11). (Psalms, PSALM 16 | USCCB, n.d.)

In the Gospel of Luke, Simeon declares to Mary that a sword will pierce your soul (heart) at the Presentation of Jesus..

* [2:35] (And you yourself a sword will pierce): Mary herself will not be untouched by the various reactions to the role of Jesus (Lk 2:34). Her blessedness as mother of the Lord will be challenged by her son who describes true blessedness as “hearing the word of God and observing it” (Lk 11:27–28 and Lk 8:20–21). (Luke, CHAPTER 2 | USCCB, n.d.)

In the Gospel of John, Jesus declares to the Beloved Disciple “Here is your mother”.

* [19:26–27] This scene has been interpreted literally, of Jesus’ concern for his mother; and symbolically, e.g., in the light of the Cana story in Jn 2 (the presence of the mother of Jesus, the address woman, and the mention of the hour) and of the upper room in Jn 13 (the presence of the beloved disciple; the hour). Now that the hour has come (Jn 19:28), Mary (a symbol of the church?) is given a role as the mother of Christians (personified by the beloved disciple); or, as a representative of those seeking salvation, she is supported by the disciple who interprets Jesus’ revelation; or Jewish and Gentile Christianity (or Israel and the Christian community) are reconciled. (John, CHAPTER 19 | USCCB, n.d.)

Angela Maynard cannot imagine anything more devastating than what Mary witnessed during the crucifixion.

I can only imagine the daily suffering she endured as she watched her son experience endless mockery as he spread the word of His Father.

As a mother, I look to Mary often—usually in a time of worry or need.  She’s always there and brings me a sense of calm and direction. I have prayed to her through my career to be with those mothers who have lost children, and for those who are dealing with difficulties related to their children. (Maynard, 2023)

Don Schwager quotes “Mary stood at the cross with her Son Jesus,” by Ambrose of Milan, 339-397 A.D.

"Mary, the mother of the Lord, stood by her Son's cross. No one has taught me this but the holy Evangelist John. Others have related how the earth was shaken at the Lord's passion, the sky was covered with darkness, the sun withdrew itself (Matthew 27:45) and how the thief was, after a faithful confession, received into paradise (Luke 23:43). John tells us what the others have not told, how the Lord while fixed on the cross called to his mother. He thought it was more important that, victorious over his sufferings, Jesus gave her the offices of piety than that he gave her a heavenly kingdom. For if it is the mark of religion to grant pardon to the thief, it is a mark of much greater piety that a mother is honored with such affection by her Son. 'Behold,' he says, 'your son.' ...'Behold your mother.' Christ testified from the cross and divided the offices of piety between the mother and the disciple...

"Nor was Mary below what was becoming the mother of Christ. When the apostles fled, she stood at the cross and with pious eyes beheld her Son's wounds. For she did not look to the death of her offspring but to the salvation of the world. Or perhaps, because that 'royal hall' [Mary as bearer of the divine King] knew that the redemption of the world would be through the death of her Son, she thought that by her death she also might add something to that universal gift. But Jesus did not need a helper for the redemption of all, who saved all without a helper. This is why he says, 'I am counted among those who go down to the pit. I am like those who have no help' (Psalm 88:4-5). He received indeed the affection of his mother but sought not anothers help. Imitate her, holy mothers, who in her only dearly beloved Son set forth so great an example of maternal virtue. For neither have you sweeter children, nor did the Virgin seek the consolation of being able to bear another son." (excerpt from LETTER 63.109-11) (Schwager, n.d.)

The Word Among Us Meditation on John 19:25-27 comments that  Mary shows us that faith, strength, and courage are possible even in the face of deep sorrow—even suffering that perhaps no one else understands. Just as she stood by Jesus as he hung on the cross, she stands by us in our sadness and pain.

“Behold, your mother” (John 19:27). Mary is not only Jesus’ mother; she is our mother, too. She wraps her arms around us, intercedes for us, and gives us consolation in our times of greatest need.

“Holy Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, you never leave my side. Thank you for understanding and being with me through every trial.” (Meditation on John 19:25-27, n.d.)

Friar Jude Winkler comments on the theology of the Church in the Pastoral Letters (including to Timothy) that is more developed than that of Paul and suggests that these letters were not written by Paul. The adoption of Mary by the Beloved Disciple at the human level has resulted in different understanding of the end of life of Mary by the Church in the East and in the West. Friar Jude reminds us of the Jewish understanding of heart and the difficulty for Mary to accept the Word that pierces the heart where we think.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, introduces cofounder of the Wild Church Network, Victoria Loorz who introduces “edge walkers” who connect across faith traditions. Loorz reminds us that mystics stand at the edges.  

Every religion has an edge where the mystics live. I once attended a conference organized by Ed Bastian, a Buddhist mystic whose calling is defined by his deep respect for and encouragement of interfaith spirituality. He gathered spiritual leaders from diverse traditions to consider what we had most in common: living on the same planet….  

We talked about how our faith traditions could connect us with the actual soil and water and creatures of Earth. And how that connection could be a spiritual foundation for the environmental movement. What I remember most was a golden thread of mystical connection with divine presence that all of us expressed in our relationships with the natural world. Even in our diversity, we all felt that we had more in common with one another—edge walkers from other traditions—than we did with people more firmly planted in the center of our own faiths…. (Rohr, n.d.)

We ponder suffering, loss, and sorrow on our journey as we contemplate the role of these human experiences in our faith.

References

Hebrews, CHAPTER 5 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved September 15, 2023, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/hebrews/5 

John, CHAPTER 19 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved September 15, 2023, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/19?25 

Luke, CHAPTER 2 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved September 15, 2023, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/2? 

Maynard, A. (2023, September 15). Creighton U. Daily Reflection. Online Ministries. Retrieved September 15, 2023, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/091523.html 

Meditation on John 19:25-27. (n.d.). The Word Among Us: Homepage. Retrieved September 15, 2023, from https://wau.org/meditations/2023/09/15/782782/ 

1 Timothy, CHAPTER 1 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved September 15, 2023, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1timothy/1? 

Psalms, PSALM 16 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved September 15, 2023, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/16?1 

Rohr, R. (n.d.). Daily Meditations — Center for Action and Contemplation. CAC Daily Meditations 2023. Retrieved September 15, 2023, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/edge-walking-2023-09-15/ 

Schwager, D. (n.d.). Standing by the Cross of Jesus. Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved September 15, 2023, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2023&date=sep15a 

Disaster and Deliverance

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today resonate with our experience of disaster in our lives and ironically remind us of the situations in which “by the Grace of God” we avoided calamity. 

Grace to the foreground

The reading from the First Letter of John declares God Is Light and Christ is Our Advocate.

* [1:8–10] Denial of the condition of sin is self-deception and even contradictory of divine revelation; there is also the continual possibility of sin’s recurrence. Forgiveness and deliverance from sin through Christ are assured through acknowledgment of them and repentance. (1 John, CHAPTER 1, n.d.)

* [2:3–6] The way we may be sure: to those who claim, “I have known Christ and therefore I know him,” our author insists on not mere intellectual knowledge but obedience to God’s commandments in a life conformed to the example of Christ; this confirms our knowledge of him and is the love of God…perfected. Disparity between moral life and the commandments proves improper belief. (1 John, CHAPTER 2, n.d.)

Psalm 124 is a Thanksgiving for Israel’s Deliverance.

* [Psalm 124] A thanksgiving which teaches that Israel’s very existence is owed to God who rescues them. In the first part Israel’s enemies are compared to the mythic sea dragon (Ps 124:2b–3a; cf. Jer 51:34) and Flood (Ps 124:3b–5; cf. Is 51:9–10). The Psalm heightens the malice of human enemies by linking them to the primordial enemies of God’s creation. Israel is a bird freed from the trapper’s snare (Ps 124:6–8)—freed originally from Pharaoh and now from the current danger. (Psalms, PSALM 124, n.d.)

The Gospel of Matthew describes the escape of the Holy Family to Egypt and the massacre of the infants of Bethlehem.

* [2:13] Flee to Egypt: Egypt was a traditional place of refuge for those fleeing from danger in Palestine (see 1 Kgs 11:40; Jer 26:21), but the main reason why the child is to be taken to Egypt is that he may relive the Exodus experience of Israel.

* [2:15] The fulfillment citation is taken from Hos 11:1. Israel, God’s son, was called out of Egypt at the time of the Exodus; Jesus, the Son of God, will similarly be called out of that land in a new exodus. The father-son relationship between God and the nation is set in a higher key. Here the son is not a group adopted as “son of God,” but the child who, as conceived by the holy Spirit, stands in unique relation to God. He is son of David and of Abraham, of Mary and of Joseph, but, above all, of God.

* [2:18] Jer 31:15 portrays Rachel, wife of the patriarch Jacob, weeping for her children taken into exile at the time of the Assyrian invasion of the northern kingdom (722–21 B.C.). Bethlehem was traditionally identified with Ephrath, the place near which Rachel was buried (see Gn 35:19; 48:7), and the mourning of Rachel is here applied to her lost children of a later age. Ramah: about six miles north of Jerusalem. The lamentation of Rachel is so great as to be heard at a far distance. (Matthew, CHAPTER 2, n.d.)

Eileen Burke-Sullivan asks who are the innocents today?

St. Ignatius of Loyola, in the Spiritual Exercises asks us to ponder this question early in the second week of the Exercises.  In the First week we discovered that it is sin and death that enslave and destroy all creation – the sin of refusing to honor God as God, seeking to be God on our own terms.  Innocents lose their lives by the corruption of humans worshipping the false god of power and control; by those who grasp at or attempt to steal the absolute power of the One who creates out of no-thing.

Ignatius offers us an analogy to consider who and what the innocents of our day are – the meditation is one of his most famous and it invites us to consider two ways to be human under the banners of two opposing realities.  Those who stand under the banner of hatred and death; of power and security; of possession and destruction are those who are not innocent.  They choose lying and stealing, murder and mayhem, chaos, and violence over life itself.  For such persons there is only the power of “control over”  and they despise the “weakness of mercy and compassion.” 

But submission to the limits of being human – even to death itself – means to stand under the banner of the God who so loved us that He sent his only begotten Son into our company to show us how to be authentically human.  We are not secure in ourselves, our talents and our power or money, we are secure only in the hands and will of the One who Loves us more than we can possibly love ourselves. (Burke, 2021)

Don Schwager quotes “The first martyrs of Christ,” by Chromatius (died 406 AD).

"In Bethlehem therefore all the babies were slain. These innocents who died then on Christ's behalf became the first martyrs of Christ. David refers to them when he says, 'From the mouths of nursing babies you have perfected praise because of your enemies, that you might bring ruin to the enemy' (Psalm 8:2). ... For in this persecution even tiny infants and nursing babies were killed on Christ's behalf and attained to the consummate praise of martyrs. Meanwhile the wicked king Herod was destroyed, he who had usurped the realm to defend himself against the king of the heavens. Thus it is that those blessed babes have deservedly lasted beyond others. They were the first who were worthy to die on Christ's behalf."(excerpt from TRACTATE ON MATTHEW 6.2) [Note: Chromatius was an early Christian scholar and bishop of Aquileia, Italy. He was a close friend of John Chrysostom and Jerome. He died in 406 AD. Jerome describead him as a "most learned and most holy man."] (Schwager, n.d.)

The Word Among Us Meditation on 1 John 1:5–2:2 comments that God is reminding us that not even the worst sinner is too far off from the mercy of God. What does that mean for those of us who live in Christ? It means that even on our worst days, there is hope. As Pope St. John Paul II once said, “We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son” (Homily, July 28, 2002).

Seeing yourself as a sinner who has been redeemed can help you be more open to God’s life-changing grace. Today’s first reading shows us just how high a price God has paid for that redemption: “the Blood of his Son Jesus” (1 John 1:7). Don’t discount the all-encompassing power of that blood to cleanse you and to change your heart! Don’t discount the wideness of God’s mercy to welcome you back when you have strayed. That mercy runs deeper than any sin that you—or anyone else—could commit. Even Herod.

Jesus is faithful to forgive all your sins.

“Father, thank you for cleansing all my sins in Jesus’ blood and calling me your beloved child.” (Meditation on 1 John 1:5–2:2, n.d.)

Friar Jude Winkler notes that the teaching on sin in 1 John connects to the assertion of the Docetists that spiritual creatures are not associated with the material world. The number of sins enumerated and the emphasis on keeping the Commandments in 1 John is different theology than the one sin of refusing to accept Jesus in the Gospel of John. Friar Jude reminds us that a paranoid megalomaniac like Herod deals in death to many people.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, introduces Catholic spirituality author Judy Cannato who writes that our freedom, gifts, and interdependence bring us to a holy obligation. 

Connectedness is fundamental to our reality. No matter which sphere of life we observe, from the physical to the spiritual, we are connected to others. . . . Many of the social and ecological problems that confront us today stem from our delusion that we are separate from, better, or more significant than, other members of creation—from other groups of people we encounter to the air we breathe. Our lack of openness to all may very well mean our demise.

If we are to expand our hearts to include all creation we need to embrace our capacity for communion. . . . Relationship is something that all life requires, even inorganic life. Our vitality depends upon the connections we establish and the communion we share. [1]

Minister and faith leader Jen Bailey writes to encourage the “misfits,” those on society’s edges, to see themselves as essential to a healthy, sustaining, and interdependent future.

All around us things are shifting, systems are collapsing, and institutions are failing. This should not surprise us. Around the world, elders across cultures and peoples were predicting this time would come. It is a time of great uncovering in which Mother Earth and Father Sky are pushing us into a divine reckoning about what it means to be in right relationship with one another and all sentient beings in the twenty-first century and beyond. It is clear to me that the actions we take now will have deep and irreversible consequences for the generations to come.

The good news is that this time is made for misfits.

When you are at the center of a circle, it is impossible to see what is at the perimeter—if you are even aware that there is a perimeter. As misfits who were pushed to the edges and in-between places, we are able to see what is on the horizon and collectively discern what is needed to meet the challenges ahead. We are called to be the gardeners who will compost and tend to the soil upon which future generations will sow seeds that will one day blossom. . . . (Cannato & Untener, 2022)

We journey on a path following the Light that continues to shine even when we cannot find it in the depths of disaster, when we wait in trust for the embrace of the Good Shepherd.

References

Burke, E. (2021, December 28). Creighton U. Daily Reflection. Online Ministries. Retrieved December 28, 2022, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/122821.html 

Cannato, J., & Untener, K. (2022, December 28). A Capacity for Communion — Center for Action and Contemplation. Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved December 28, 2022, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-capacity-for-communion-2022-12-28/ 

Matthew, CHAPTER 2. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved December 28, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/2?13 

Meditation on 1 John 1:5–2:2. (n.d.). The Word Among Us: Homepage. Retrieved December 28, 2022, from https://wau.org/meditations/2022/12/28/568801/ 

1 John, CHAPTER 1. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved December 28, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1john/1?5 

1 John, CHAPTER 2. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved December 28, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1john/2 

Psalms, PSALM 124. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved December 28, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/124?2 

Schwager, D. (n.d.). Rachel Weeping for Her Children. Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved December 28, 2022, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2022&date=dec28