The Crucified God: Emmanuel Fully Revealed (partial reprise)

Several years ago I did a reflection for my parish. I noted that all through Advent we sing Veni, Veni, Emmanuel and pray that God will come and really reveal Godself as Emmanuel, the God who is with us. I also noted that we may not always realize the depth of meaning captured in the name Emmanuel. We may not realize the degree of solidarity with us and the whole of creation it points to. There are several reasons here. First we tend to use Emmanuel only during Advent and Christmastide so we stop reflecting on the meaning or theological implications of the name. Secondly, we are used to thinking of a relatively impersonal God borrowed from Greek philosophy; he is omnipresent -- rather like air is present in our lives and he is impassible, incapable of suffering in any way at all. Because he is omnipresent, God seems already to be "Emmanuel" so we are unclear what is really being added to what we know (and what is now true!!) of God.  Something is similarly true because of God's impassibility which seems to make God incapable of suffering with us or feeling compassionate toward us. (We could say something similar regarding God's immutability, etc. Greek categories are inadequate for understanding a living God who wills to be Emmanuel with all that implies.) And thirdly, we tend to forget that the word "reveal" does not only mean "to make known," but also "to make real in space and time." The eternal and transcendent God who is revealed in space and time as Emmanuel is the God who, in Christ, enters exhaustively into the most profoundly historical and personal lives and circumstances of his Creation and makes these part of his own life in the process.

Thus, just as the Incarnation of the Word of God happens over the whole of Jesus' life and death and not merely with Jesus' conception or nativity, so too does God require the entire life and death of Jesus to achieve the degree of solidarity with us that makes him the Emmanuel he wills to be. There is a double "movement" involved here, the movement of descent and ascent, kenosis and theosis. Not only does God in Christ become implicated in the whole of human experience and the realm of human history but in that same Christ God takes the whole of the human situation and experience into Godself. We talk about this by saying that through the Christ Event heaven and earth interpenetrate one another and one day God will be all in all or, again, that "the Kingdom of God is at hand." John the Evangelist says it again and again with the language of mutual indwelling and union: "I am in him and he is in me," "he who sees me sees the one who sent me", "the Father and I are One." Paul affirms dimensions of it in Romans 8 when he exults, "Nothing [at all in heaven or on earth] can separate us from the Love of God."

And so, in Jesus' life and active ministry, the presence of God is made real in space and time in an unprecedented way --- that is, with unprecedented authority, compassion, and intimacy. He companions and heals us; he exorcises our demons, teaches, feeds, forgives and sanctifies us. He is mentor and brother and Lord. He bears our stupidities and fear, our misunderstandings, resistance, and even our hostility and betrayals. But the revelation of God as Emmanuel means much more besides; as we move into the Triduum we begin to celebrate the exhaustive revelation, the exhaustive realization of an eternally-willed solidarity with us whose extent we can hardly imagine. In Christ and especially in his passion and death God comes to us in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place. Three dimensions of the cross especially allow us to see the depth of solidarity with us our God embraces in Christ: failure, suffering unto death, and lostness or godforsakenness. Together they reveal our God as Emmanuel --- the one who is with us as the one from whom nothing can ever ultimately separate us because in Christ those things become part of God's own life.

Jesus comes to the cross ostensibly having failed in his mission. (From one perspective we could say that had he succeeded completely there would have been no betrayal, no trial, no torture and no crucifixion.) Jesus had spoken truth to power all throughout his ministry. On the cross this comes to a climax and in the events of Jesus' passion, the powers and principalities of this world appear to swallow him up. But even as this occurs and Jesus embraces the weight of the world's darkness and deathliness, Jesus remains open to God and trusts in his capacity to redeem any failure; thus even failure, but especially this one, can serve the Kingdom of God. Jesus suffers to the point of death and suffers more profoundly than any person in history we can name --- not because he hurt more profoundly than others but because he was more vulnerable to it and chose to embrace that vulnerability and all the world threw at him without mitigation. Suffering per se is not salvific, but Jesus' openness and responsiveness to God (that is, his obedience) in the face of suffering is. Thus, suffering even unto death is transformed into a potential sacrament of God's presence. Finally, Jesus suffers the lostness of godforsakenness or abandonment by God --- the ultimate separation from God due to sin. This is the meaning of not just death but death on a cross. In this death Jesus again remains open (obedient) to the God who reveals himself most exhaustively as Emmanuel and takes even the lostness of sin and death into himself and makes these his own. After all, as the NT reminds us, it is the sick and lost for whom God in Christ comes.

As I have noted before, John C. Dwyer, my major Theology professor for BA and MA work back in the 1970's described God's revelation of self on the cross (God's making himself known and personally present even in those places from whence we exclude him) --- the exhaustive coming of God as Emmanuel --- in this way:

[[Through Jesus, the broken being of the world enters the personal life of the everlasting God, and this God shares in the broken being of the world. God is eternally committed to this world, and this commitment becomes full and final in his personal presence within this weak and broken man on the cross. In him the eternal One takes our destiny upon himself --- a destiny of estrangement, separation, meaninglessness, and despair. But at this moment the emptiness and alienation that mar and mark the human situation become once and for all, in time and eternity, the ways of God. God is with this broken man in suffering and in failure, in darkness and at the edge of despair, and for this reason suffering and failure, darkness and hopelessness will never again be signs of the separation of man from God. God identifies himself with the man on the cross, and for this reason everything we think of as manifesting the absence of God will, for the rest of time, be capable of manifesting his presence --- up to and including death itself.]]

He continues,

[[Jesus is rejected and his mission fails, but God participates in this failure, so that failure itself can become a vehicle of his presence, his being here for us. Jesus is weak, but his weakness is God's own, and so weakness itself can be something to glory in. Jesus' death exposes the weakness and insecurity of our situation, but God made them his own; at the end of the road, where abandonment is total and all the props are gone, he is there. At the moment when an abyss yawns beneath the shaken foundations of the world and self, God is there in the depths, and the abyss becomes a ground. Because God was in this broken man who died on the cross, although our hold on existence is fragile, and although we walk in the shadow of death all the days of our lives, and although we live under the spell of a nameless dread against which we can do nothing, the message of the cross is good news indeed: rejoice in your fragility and weakness; rejoice even in that nameless dread because God has been there and nothing can separate you from him. It has all been conquered, not by any power in the world or in yourself, but by God. When God takes death into himself it means not the end of God but the end of death.]] Dwyer, John C., Son of Man Son of God, a New Language for Faith, p 182-183.

Joseph, Icon of the Man who Struggles to implement God's own Justice (Reprised)

For tomorrow's Feast of St Joseph, I wanted to repost something I put up a couple of years ago because it reflected an important step in my own appreciation of St Joseph.

[[Friday's readings (December 2015) focused on the coming of the One in whom justice will be done and creation set to rights. Jeremiah speaks of this in terms of the Davidic line of Kings --- a line which often profaned and betrayed God's sacred promise and hope. The psalmist sings wonderfully of the promise of the Lord bringing all things to rights in the love of God.

But especially poignant is the Matthean story of Joseph as the icon of one who struggles to allow God's own justice to be brought to birth as fully as possible. It is, in its own way, a companion story to Luke's account of Mary's annunciation and fiat. Both Mary (we are told explicitly) and Joseph (we are told implicitly) ponder things in their hearts, both are mystified and shaken by the great mystery which has taken hold of them and in whose story they have become pivotal characters. Both allow God's own power and presence to overshadow them so that God might do something absolutely new in their world. But  it is Joseph's more extended and profound struggle to truly do justice in mercy, and to be a righteous man who reveals God's own justice in love, God's salvation, that was at the heart of yesterday's Advent story.

The Situation:

I am a little ashamed to say I have never spent much time considering Joseph's predicament or the context of that predicament until this week. Instead I have always thought of him as a good man who chose the merciful legal solution rather than opting for the stricter one. I never saw him making any other choice nor did I understand the various ways he was pushed and pulled by his own faith and love. But Joseph's situation was far more demanding and frustrating than I had ever appreciated! Consider the background which weighed heavy on Joseph's heart. First, he is identified as a just or righteous man, a man faithful to God, to the Covenant, a keeper of the Law or Torah, an observant Jew who was well aware of Jeremiah's promise and the sometimes bitter history of his own Davidic line. All of this and more is implied here by the term "righteous man". In any case, this represents his most foundational and essential identity. Secondly, he was betrothed to Mary, wed (not just engaged!) to her though he had not yet taken her to his family home and would not for about a year. That marriage was a symbol of the covenant between God and his People Israel. Together he and Mary symbolized the Covenant; to betray or dishonor this relationship was to betray and profane the Covenant itself. This too was uppermost in Joseph's mind precisely because he was a righteous man.

Thirdly, he loved Mary and was entirely mystified by her pregnancy. Nothing in his tradition prepared him for a virgin birth. Mary could only have gotten pregnant through intercourse with another man so far as Joseph could have known --- and this despite Mary's protestations of innocence. (The OT passage referring to a virgin is more originally translated as "young woman". Only later as "almah" was translated into the Greek "parthenos" and even later was seen by Christians in light of Mary and Jesus' nativity did "young woman" firmly become "a virgin".) The history of Israel was fraught with all-too-human failures which betrayed the covenant and profaned Israel's high calling. While Joseph was open to God doing something new in history it is more than a little likely that he was torn between which of these possibilities was actually occurring here, just as he was torn between believing Mary and continuing the marriage and divorcing her and casting her and the child aside.

What Were Joseph's Options?

Under the Law Joseph had two options. The first involved a very public divorce. Joseph would bring the situation to the attention of the authorities, involve witnesses, repudiate the marriage and patrimony for the child and cast Mary aside. This would establish Joseph as a wronged man and allow him to continue to be seen as righteous or just. But Mary could have been stoned and the baby would also have died as a result. The second option was more private but also meant bringing his case to the authorities. In this solution Joseph would again have repudiated the marriage and paternity but the whole matter would not have become public and Mary's life or that of the child would not have been put in immediate jeopardy. Still, in either instance Mary's shame and apparent transgressions would have become known and in either case the result would have been ostracization and eventual death. Under the law Joseph would have been called a righteous man but how would he have felt about himself in his heart of hearts? Would he have wondered if he was just under the Law but at the same time had refused to hear the message of an angel of God, refused to allow God to do something new and even greater than the Law?

Of course, Joseph might have simply done nothing at all and continued with the plans for the marriage's future. But in such a case many problems would have arisen. According to the Law he would have been falsely claiming paternity of the child --- a transgression of the Law and thus, the covenant. Had the real father shown up in the future and claimed paternity Joseph would then have been guilty of "conniving with Mary's own sin" (as Harold Buetow describes the matter). Again Law and covenant would have been transgressed and profaned. In his heart of hearts he might have believed this was the just thing to do but in terms of his People and their Covenant and Law he would have acted unjustly and offended the all-just God. Had he brought Mary to his family home he would have rendered them and their abode unclean as well. If Mary was guilty of adultery she would have been unclean --- hence the need for ostracizing her or even killing her!

Entering the Liminal Place Where God May Speak to Us:

All of this and so much more was roiling around in Joseph's heart and mind! In one of the most difficult situations we might imagine, Joseph struggled to discern what was just and what it would mean for him to do justice in our world! Every option was torturous; each was inadequate for a genuinely righteous man. Eventually he came to a conclusion which may have seemed the least problematical even if it was not wholly satisfactory, namely to put Mary away "quietly", to divorce her in a more private way and walk away from her. And at this moment, when Joseph's struggle to discern and do justice has reached it's most neuralgic point, at a place of terrible liminality symbolized in so much Scriptural literature by dreaming, God reveals to Joseph the same truth Mary has herself accepted: God is doing something unimaginably new here. He is giving the greatest gift yet. The Holy Spirit has overshadowed Mary and resulted in the conception of One who will be the very embodiment of God's justice in our world. Not only has a young woman come to be pregnant but a virgin will bear a child! The Law will be fulfilled in Him and true justice will have a human face as God comes to be Emmanuel in this new and definitive way.

Joseph's faith response to God's revelation has several parts or dimensions. He decides to consummate the marriage with Mary by bringing her to his family home but not as an act of doing nothing at all and certainly not as some kind of sentimental or cowardly evasion of real justice. Instead it is a way of embracing the whole truth and truly doing justice. He affirms the marriage and adopts the child as his own. He establishes him in the line of David even as he proclaims the child's true paternity. He does this by announcing this new Son's name to be Jesus, God saves.  Thus Joseph proclaims to the world that God has acted in this Son's birth in a new and entirely unimagined way which transcends and relativizes the Law even as it completely respects it. He honors the Covenant with a faithfulness that leads to that covenant's perfection in the Christ Event. In all of this Joseph continues to show himself to be a just or righteous  man, a man whose humanity and honor we ourselves should regard profoundly.

Justice is the way to Genuine Future:

Besides being moved by Joseph's genuine righteousness, I am struck by a couple of things in light of all of this. First, discerning and doing justice is not easy. There are all kinds of solutions which are partial and somewhat satisfactory, but real justice takes work and, in the end, must be inspired by the love and wisdom of God. Secondly, Law per se can never really mediate justice. Instead, the doing of justice takes a human being who honors the Law, feels compassion, knows mercy, struggles in fear and trepidation with discerning what is right, and ultimately is open to allowing God to do something new and creative in the situation. Justice is never a system of laws, though it will include these. It is always a personal act of courage and even of worship, the act of one who struggles to mediate God's own plan and will for all those and that involved. Finally, I am struck by the fact that justice opens reality to a true future. Injustice closes off the future. In all of the partial and unsatisfactory solutions Joseph entertained and wrestled with, each brought some justice and some injustice. Future of some sort was assured for some and foreclosed to others; often both came together in what was merely a sad and tragic approximation of a "real future". Only God's own will and plan assures a genuine future for the whole of his creation. That too is something yesterday's Gospel witnessed to.

Another Look at Joseph:

Joseph is the star in Matt's account, the one who points to God and the justice only God can do. It is important, I think, to see all that he represents as Mary's counterpart in the nativity of Jesus (Son of David) who is Emmanuel (Son of the One who, especially in Jesus, is God With Us). Mary's fiat seems easy, graceful in more than one sense of that term. Joseph's fiat is hard-won but also graced or graceful. For Joseph, as for Mary, there is real labor involved as the categories of divinity and justice, law and covenant are burst asunder to bring the life and future of heaven to birth in our world. May we each be committed to mediating God's own justice and bringing God's future into being especially in this Advent-Christmas season. This is the time when we especially look ahead to Christ's coming and too, to his eventual coming to full stature when God will be all in all. May we never take refuge in partial and inadequate solutions to our world's problems and need for justice, especially out of shortsightedness, sentimentality, cowardice, evasion, or fear for our own reputations. And may we allow Joseph to be the model of discernment, humility, and courage in mediating the powerful presence and future of God we recognize as justice and so yearn for in this 21st Century.]]

On the Use of Language other than Conciliar formulae and Jesus' Discernment Struggle in Gethsemane

[[Dear Sister, you have said that Jesus is entirely or exhaustively transparent to God and that you believe this is the same thing that the councils who came up with our Christological Dogma were saying. I have a couple of questions in that case, 1) why don't you just use the same language then and repeat the Dogmatic formula, and 2) if Jesus is both God and man, how is it he can struggle with what steps he will take in Gethsemane? Thank  you.]]

Good questions, important ones, thank you. In answering the question of simply repeating dogmatic formulae and terminology my own answer needs to point out two things, 1) that while the dogmatic language and formulations of councils like Nicaea and Chalcedon were a means to an end, they were not an end in themselves, and 2) the church has made clear that theologians may well need to restate things in language that speaks better to other times and thought worlds while not rejecting the (i.e., any) dogma per se. So, first of all remember that the two natures/one person language was the best language the church had at its disposal to express the truth that in the fully human One Jesus, the world encountered the living God himself. In Jesus as fully, authentically, or exhaustively human we also meet the one in whom the creator, transcendent God is made definitively known and real in space and time and takes creation to and even into himself.

 The Christological Formula:

Remember too that at the time of the Christological councils the Church was struggling to take the Christ Event seriously and to protect both parts of what I affirmed above; 1) that Jesus was truly and exhaustively human (more than you and I are because of sin), and 2) that those who encounter him also and at the same time encounter the living God Godself. In Jesus, that God is truly and powerfully present. All human language and categories of thought will fall short of the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth and this was certainly true of the Greek categories/thought of the early Church Fathers which could not deal with paradox (which is right at the heart of the Christ Event). Thus, when someone accented Jesus' humanity it was necessarily seen to diminish the divinity one encountered in him. On the other hand, when one emphasized or accented the divinity we encountered, it necessarily meant diminishing Jesus humanity. 

Imagine a pendulum hanging at rest and name that Jesus of Nazareth. Imagine theologians pushing the pendulum toward the extreme labeled "Divinity" in order to speak more and more emphatically about the way Jesus makes divinity present and encounterable in history (the world of space and time). This "pendulum" represents the way the early fathers thought world demanded they think of what was happening. If one continues to push the pendulum to its extreme in this direction (toward divinity) one was also seen as necessarily emptying Jesus of his humanity more and more, and at the extreme, when the pendulum is pushed as far as one can go in asserting the fact that in Jesus one encounters the living God, one comes up with Docetism, the heresy that Jesus merely seemed human. On the other hand, if one tries to emphasize the humanity of Jesus, Greek categories of thought and language made it necessary to push the pendulum in the direction of humanity at the expense of divinity. One came eventually to adoptionism and Arianism -- heresies in which Jesus was just a good and righteous man but not one in whom one truly encountered the living God.

Another way of describing what the Greek categories and language made necessary (and what happens on the pendulum) is that of inverse proportion which, by the way, is exactly counter direct proportion and a paradoxical way of thinking. You see, in an inverse proportion, if one increases one side of the proportion (divinity), the other side (humanity) will necessarily decrease. But back to the image of the pendulum. The solution the early Fathers came up with to end the continual problem of heresy falling into opposite heresy/heresies as the pendulum was pushed in one direction and another was to assert the two nature/one person formula. This essentially stopped the swinging and protected the truth that in the fully human one, Jesus, one also and at the same time encountered in a definitive way the living God who was the creator and redeemer of the cosmos. 

Today the dogma continues to hold the pendulum steady and reminds theologians that both truths must be given full weight in writing and thinking about the Christ Event. It is a means to this end. However the dogmatic formula is not the mystery itself but a means of protecting, challenging, and verifying our language, thought, and proclamation of the mystery which stands behind this language. We not only can find other language/categories of thought to convey this mystery in order to be true to the Christological Councils, proclaiming the truth to other generations and thought worlds will demand we do so. Even so, the dogmatic formula will continue to protect the truth as we search for other ways to state and communicate the truth behind the formula (and behind whatever linguistic formulation we settle on for our time). In other words, the dogmatic or linguistic formula serves the truth, it is not the truth. It is, again, a means to an end but it is not an end in itself.

Your first Question:

The bottom line then is that I do not simply repeat the formula because I am convinced that is a sure way to fail to proclaim the mystery behind the formula to people today. We just don't think or speak in the categories used by the early Fathers and translating them into English terms we think we understand not only does not help, it leads us further astray!** I also believe it falls short of the biblical language and categories of thought --- especially those of direct proportion and paradox. Direct proportion says if one element of the ratio is increased, so must the second; if Jesus' humanity is increased, so must the divinity we encounter in and through him. Likewise, if the Divinity increases so does Jesus' humanity --- it becomes fuller, more abundant and true. Paradox says essentially the same. The dogmatic formula has an important place but it has no room for and cannot deal with paradox (though I believe it clearly calls for and maybe points to paradox as it tries to hold two contrasting realities together in unity/identity.) The need to truly encounter the living and risen Jesus --- and so too the living God who has taken us into himself just as he entered as deeply as possible into our existence in search of a counterpart --- requires different language and categories of thought if that encounter is to occur and inform my own subsequent proclamation.

Your Second Question:

Jesus is an authentically human person on a journey to live and proclaim the sovereignty of God in that life and to reveal it (make it both known and real in space and time) to the world. This means that God must be sovereign in Jesus' life and that he must learn to be attentive to this and to all the temptations he experiences to put self before the will of the one he calls Abba. He must also become more and more responsive to God rather than to all of the other powers he faces. Luke refers to this life journey when he says Jesus grew in wisdom (or grace) and stature. Incarnating the Word of God, allowing its full and exhaustive enfleshment is the work of Jesus, not of Mary, and it took Jesus the whole of his life and death. The process came to a climax in Jerusalem as the place where all the powers and principalities were centered and were even drawn by Jesus to himself. This included not merely the religious and political powers but what Paul called "powers and principalities" --- the power of evil, sin, and death which are also alive and at work in our world.

Jesus had been speaking truth to all of these various forms of power throughout his ministry when he healed, preached, taught, exorcised, blessed, forgave, and challenged or confronted various folks. But what becomes clear to Jesus is that wonderful as they are as signs of Jesus' unique authority and the reign or sovereignty of God, no miracles or healing or exorcisms are enough to defeat the powers that are the source of so much suffering. There must be a showdown between the powers that be and God himself and that means drawing them all together, drawing them onto himself in fact while he remained entirely open and responsive to God so that God could embrace him and defeat the powers he has taken on as personal realities, personal experienced realities.

When I say Jesus struggles it is not with God nor with the choice to remain faithful and to live with integrity. But I can hear him asking himself and God if there isn't another way to achieve all that God wills for the world and God's Kingdom. Eventually though, Jesus' discernment is completed. God does not speak but I am convinced his listening presence is as active as that of any good Abba, or spiritual director. Still, the decision to continue on to the cross is Jesus' discernment as the necessary way to live his life with exhaustive faith, integrity, and love. Those contemporary theologians who say, for instance, that Jesus' cross was unnecessary must come to terms with Jesus' own discernment in this matter. In any case, we have seen Jesus struggling before this in a somewhat similar way when he was driven into the desert by the Spirit. Every time he goes apart to pray there is likely some elements of similar struggle to discern the way forward. Jesus is human like us in everything but without sin(ning). Yes, when we encounter him we also encounter the living God through and in him, but that does not mean Jesus does not have to pray or think or discern. Jesus is himself and to the extent he is entirely transparent to the living God, he is wholly, truly and exhaustively himself. That is the paradox with which Greek thought and language could not cope.

I sincerely hope this is helpful! Please feel free to write with more questions!!!

** One example of this occurring is with the words eventually translated into the English term "person". Today, the word person means an independent conscious subject and we all know that. But when the Christological Councils were held the terms (hypostasis, substance or ousia) that eventually were translated as "person" meant almost the exact opposite of what that means today. They did not mean an individual conscious subject but pointed to ways in which God possessed his own divinity. As I was taught long ago, [[[ The notion that there are three persons in God, in the sense we inevitably use the word person today, is not an assertion of faith; it is a denial of the real God because it is the refusal to allow Jesus to be the one who defines God, and the refusal to allow God to be the one who defines himself and determines the one he will be, in Jesus.]] (Dwyer, Son of Man and Son of God, A New Language for Faith, Paulist Press, 1983, p.92) Emphasis added.

Death as the Last Enemy: On the Relationship of God to Death

[[Dear Sister, I read something you wrote about God not willing the torture and death of Jesus. (I'm sorry for being vague here; I can't cut and paste from your blog.) That was not what I was taught. In fact, I was told when at different times two of my children died of serious illness that God "had taken them" and also was reminded that I should not be angry with God because after all, "he had not spared his only begotten Son." Are you saying that God does not will our deaths either? That God did not take my daughters from me? And if God did not do this, then where are my children? What hope do any of us have??!!]]

First, I am terribly sorry for your loss!! Please know I will hold you in my own heart and prayer. Meanwhile, yes, I have written that Jesus' torture and death by crucifixion were not willed by God; these were inhuman acts dreamt up and made as sophisticated and ingenious a way of killing someone in horrendous torture --- i.e., in as unspeakable degradation, pain, and shame, as was (in)humanly possible. The first thing I think we must accept is that our God is a God of love and life and that, as Paul tells us, death is the last enemy to be brought under God's feet (1Cor 15:25-26). What God is is Love-in-Act and what God wills is life, abundant, integral life in dialogue and union with Himself. He does not will the death of anyone, including his only begotten Son. 

The second thing we must see and embrace then, is a somewhat different way of understanding Jesus' prayer and God's silence in the Garden of Gethsemane. Remember that there Jesus prays three times that his Abba allow this cup to pass him by. He does not pray that the cup not be given him by his Abba, but that God would remove it if possible. It is possible here to hear Jesus struggling in the presence of the One he loves and is loved by  best --- the One who always hears him --- to find another way forward, another way to live his life and vocation with integrity without running headfirst into the powers that will kill him --- and this includes not only the religious and political authorities, but the powers of sin and death as well. But God does not remove or take from Jesus the cup of integrity --- the cup of a life lived with integrity in dialogue with God drunk to its very dregs. 

Does God will Jesus' horrendous and shameful death by torture and/or crucifixion? No. We can't accept he does nor does any text say this specifically is the will of God. To believe it is the will of God is to accept as well that those who betrayed, rejected, lied about, abandoned, spat upon, tortured, and executed Jesus were fully cooperating with the will of God. That is simply impossible, and if true, would give us a God few of us could believe in or trust. Where is the "good news" in that? To struggle in the way Jesus does in Gethsemane is to engage with God in order to come to terms with God's actual will; here Jesus struggles to come to clarity about and embrace fully what it means to live one's life and vocation with complete and exhaustive integrity --- especially when that life/vocation is defined in terms of dialogue with and complete dependence upon God. Jesus' life certainly is about this and our own lives are meant to be the same. It is not Jesus' torture and death that God wills but his absolute integrity and exhaustively authentic God-dependent humanity. This is the cup God cannot, and will not remove from him.

In Jesus' passion, we must learn to tease apart the things that are of man, and especially of man's inhumanity versus what is authentically human, and those which are truly of God or are the will of God. What I find of God in the crucifixion is the affirmation and reassurance that God, the One Jesus calls Abba, does not despise even the most godless of situations, places, persons, and events. Our God is the one is who absolutely determined to be found in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place. Jesus, precisely as truly and authentically human, reveals this God to us and in the power of the Holy Spirit lives his life and speaks truth to power in a way which means that God does not despise the godless places in our lives; they are, in fact, the places God chooses to reveal his love and mercy most exhaustively.

Regarding the things of mankind, there are two aspects we must be able to see in Jesus' passion and death: first, there are the inhuman or less than truly human actions and attitudes of most of the actors in the narrative. These have to do with all the things I mentioned above in the second paragraph and several more besides -- the hunger for power and the correlative thirst for control at the expense of others, the fear associated with life in such a society for those who are diminished, oppressed, and exploited, the tendency to join in when a mob yells angry, bloodthirsty, and thoughtless slogans because otherwise we feel powerless, have no true sense of ourselves or of  genuinely belonging, and believe we can achieve these things by joining ourselves to such groups even when that leads us to harm others. All of these tend to dehumanize us. The instances of inhuman and dehumanizing behavior and attitudes in the passion narratives are legion. 

Secondly, there are examples of true or authentic humanity, human humility, integrity, faithfulness, generosity, and courage. Jesus is the primary exemplar here, but the beloved disciple, Jesus' Mother, and a few other women along with Joseph of Arimathea and the Centurion who proclaims Jesus the Christ/ Son of God are also participants modeling some of these virtues and dimensions of authentic humanity. What is especially true of authentic humanity is the way it is entirely transparent to God --- something I believe Catholic Christological dogma tried to express in the non-paradoxical language of hypostases, etc. So, the more truly human one is, the more transparent to God. And because this is so, when we see Jesus' helplessness, weakness, shame, brokenness, and so forth, we should also be able to see the paradoxical power of love that does not despise weakness, brokenness, or anything else that might once have been a sign of God's disfavor and absence. Instead, in the crucified Christ God makes these his own and there on the cross heaven and earth are drawn together in the very heart of Jesus precisely as crucified. (cf., 2 Cor 12:8-9 "My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness.")

The Good News of the Cross

For purposes of this essay, again, it is critically important to remember that death is not some sort of weapon God wields to punish, but again, is an event linked consequentially to estrangement and alienation from God, self, and others.  As noted above, it, along with Sin, is a power or principality which is a consequence of human sinfulness which Paul identifies as the last enemy to be put under the feet of God. It is imperative that we understand death, and especially what the NT calls "eternal death,"  "sinful death," or again, "godless death," as something linked to sinfulness with which God contends. God does this throughout the history of Israel's struggle against idolatry and he does it in Jesus' miracles, exorcisms, and in every other choice for life and love which Jesus makes on God's and others' behalf.  

What Paul also tells us is that the cross is precisely the place where God's ultimate victory over the powers of sin and death is won. It is the place where humans beings do their worst to an innocent other and it is a place where authentic humanity is made definitively real in space and time in Jesus in spite of the very worst human beings can do and experience. Finally, it is the place where God's love is revealed in its greatest depth and breadth; here we see God revealed definitively (i.e., made definitively real and known in space and time) as the One who will not allow sin  or death to have the final word or be the final scream or silence. Here on the cross Jesus remains obedient (that is, open and attentive) to the God who wills to be present to, with, and for us without condition or limit. In other words here on the cross heaven and earth come together as God has always willed. Paul says it this way: [[Very rarely will someone give his life for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God proves his love for us in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,]] and again, [[God was in Christ, drawing all [creation] to Himself,]] and too, [[Jesus, the Christ was obedient unto death, even (godless, sinful) death on a cross."]] In all of this God is at work bringing a new heaven and new earth into existence where God will be all in all. More, God does this for us so that, as my major theology professor used to put it, human beings might "live in joy and die in peace."

Your Questions:

So, with all of that as background, let me try to respond to your questions more directly.  Yes, in light of this theology of the cross I am saying that God does not will Jesus' death or the death of any other person. Our God, the God and Abba of Jesus wills life --- full and abundant life, not death. He wills that Jesus live his life with integrity and that he bring God's love to the whole sweep of human existence, every moment and mood of it. This is Jesus vocation and the way he proclaims the coming of the Reign of God. He wills that Jesus oppose Sin -- that state of estrangement and alienation that occurs whenever human beings fall short of their truest humanity and choose idols instead of God. But death itself is not "of God" and godless, final, or eternal death, even less so. The truth is that while death invariably intervenes in and destroys life in a bewildering variety of ways, God in/through Christ and his cross intervenes in death and brings eternal life, meaning, and hope out of that. Tragically, Death did indeed take your daughters, but in Christ God has taken death into himself and transformed it entirely with his own presence, life, and love. In so doing he rescues your daughters from death and welcomes them into his own very life. The hope this makes possible extends to all of us in Christ.

Your children are well and entirely safe in God as well. That is the hope that we all share because while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us all. God in Christ loves us so exhaustively and effectively that he will allow nothing to stand in the way of this love, not sin or death, not anything created or supernatural. We are made for God and nothing at all can prevent us from reaching that goal. Again, to quote Paul, [[Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No. . .For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.]] (Romans 8: 35-39)

I sincerely hope this is helpful! It is meant not only for you but for any who have been taught some version of God using death as "punishment" or, when this doesn't fit the context, that he "calls us home" by causing our death. God calls us to himself, always and everywhere, including in our godlessness and relative inhumanity, but death is not his weapon or instrument in this; rather it is the enemy that he vanquishes in Jesus' own obedient (open to God) death.

Putting "Redemptive Experience in the Silence of Solitude" at the Center of Definitions of Eremitical Life

[[Dear Sister, thank you for answering my question about the meaning of "being a hermit in an essential sense". I think I get it now. I always have thought that a hermit is someone who lives in solitude and maybe too in silence but you are saying it is the redemptive experience which defines the essence of the term hermit for you and also for the church. Does the canon (603?) also say this? Is this what is implied with the term "silence of solitude"? (I think you have suggested this.) Are you at all concerned that you are narrowing the meaning of the word in a way most people will not have thought of and that may not coincide with the dictionary definition of the term "hermit"?]]

Thanks for following up. You will note I condensed your email a little. What I have been saying is that while all hermits live in silence and solitude, not all those who live in silence and solitude are hermits  --- at least not as the church defines the hermit, yes. You've got that too! As I have written here many times over the years, not every form of silence and solitude is eremitical and not every form of life that has been called "hermit" over the centuries has either the character or the dignity and meaning of the life the Church identifies as eremitical. Some are transitional forms of solitude occasioned by grief or depression, for instance; similarly then, some are necessary to get one's bearings and come to know oneself anew as one prepares to move on in one's life. Others are forms of misanthropy, or are rooted in personal failure and fear of living, for instance. Some are matters of temperament, or dictated by personal woundedness alone. Others are defined by artistic and literary pursuits of various kinds. None of these, of themselves, are eremitical and several can never become  authentically eremitical.

Similarly, not all forms of silence are eremitical. Some are rooted in personal muteness --- in the inability to address or be addressed by others --- whatever the etiology; some are a form of despair and a related inability to be related to others or, therefore, to oneself and the dialogue with God, others, and self which authentic human life actually is. Thus too, not every form of withdrawal is eremitical or worthy of eremitic life with its characteristic anachoresis. Some is unhealthy (see other posts on this) or outright pathological, cynical, and embittered. While the dictionary definition of hermit may have the effect of lumping all of these forms of life together with the life c 603 identifies as eremitical, and while the stereotypes we all know regarding what a hermit is, how they behave and are motivated, do the same, I don't think this serves the vocation of hermit. We can neither understand nor appreciate the eremitical vocation, whether communal or solitary unless we draw a strong red line between common definitions and the more narrow one I am using. Especially we cannot know eremitical life as a gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church and world unless we take this more finely defined notion as our criterion of understanding.

What distinguishes all of these various forms of solitary and silent life at this level is the redemptive element and experience which either stands at or is missing from the heart of each of them. I do believe canon 603 points to this reality even though it never says "redemptive experience" in so many words. What it does say however is, "the silence of solitude" rather than silence and solitude, and also "for the salvation of the world". Both of these phrases point to something which is greater than the sum of either their parts (as in the case of the silence of solitude) or all of the central elements of the canon as a whole (i.e., vows, Rule of life, assiduous prayer and penance, silence of solitude, stricter separation, and supervision by bishop/delegate). Both phrases point to something which all of the central elements in the canon serve, support, and allow to emerge both in the life of the hermit (especially there) and for those to whom the hermit witnesses. I believe what they serve, support, and allow to emerge is the redemptive experience which is central to eremitical life in the silence of solitude.

I am not concerned that my way of understanding the meaning of "hermit" or "eremitical life" is narrower than a dictionary definition's might be. Remember that common dictionaries provide descriptive meanings --- that is meanings which describe how most people use these terms. They are not primarily prescriptive --- that is, they do not prescribe how words must be used. In some areas (faith, theology) common dictionary meanings significantly betray the more accurate meaning of terms because what is given are "the ways most folks understand and use these terms." If you ask someone (or a common dictionary) what a parable is you are apt to get the following, "a brief  religious story with a moral". But in the NT, Jesus' parables are decidedly not stories with a moral. Similarly, some dictionaries might define faith as "belief without evidence" or some form of unreasonable assent. Again, however, in Christianity, faith is neither of these but a profound and "transrational" form of  trust involving both knowing and being known. In the case of the term "hermit" I am speaking of a vocation summoning one to wholeness in Christ which is sought and lived on behalf of others as opposed to a choice for isolated existence "off the grid" which benefits oneself alone. In the case of the Catholic hermit solitude is a profoundly related and interrelated reality and a generous one as well. We point to this truth when we identify it as an ecclesial vocation. 

I am also not concerned with with what could be construed as a narrower way of defining hermits and eremitism because I believe this definition is 1) consonant with and rooted in an explication of c 603, which 2) I have come to from my personal experience of living the life (rather than from merely reading about it for instance), and 3) as note above, this definition reflects the gift this life is from the Holy Spirit to the church and world, and allows the eremitical life to be truly esteemed as a healthy, lifegiving, genuinely kerygmatic, and inspiring way of life. Again, it is a vocation which can console and challenge many and I believe it speaks especially to the chronically ill, those who are living alone after losing a spouse, for instance, and many others who might be wondering if their lives are meaningful because they can't or don't compete according to this culture's dominant paradigm of success or achievement, prestige and power. Stereotypes of "hermit life" and more common notions of what a hermit is cannot do this.

I hope this is helpful. Blessings on your Lenten journey!

Another Look: What does it mean to be a Hermit in an Essential Sense?

[[ Dear Sister, I wondered if you could say what you mean by the term "being a hermit in an essential sense"? I am just not "getting" it. Thank you.]]

Thanks for your question. I am going to repost something I wrote several years ago which I hope will be helpful. It responds to a question very like your own. In particular it speaks of the redemptive experience which must be at the core of an experience of the silence of solitude in an eremitical context. It is this experience and the fruit of it which will allow a person to identify a hermit (or someone who could consider themselves a hermit because essentially they are one) vs a non-hermit or mere loner. If this experience and its fruit are missing from a person's life -- no matter how much silence or solitude they live daily --- I believe they are not a hermit in the way the Church understands the term and certainly not as I write about hermits. When Canon 603 uses the term "the silence of solitude" it is speaking of a reality beyond mere external silence and physical solitude; it is speaking of the fruit of a redemptive process which has occurred through the grace of God in silence and solitude. If this piece raises questions for you or is unclear in some way I hope you will write back with those specific questions! Thanks yourself.

[[Dear Sister when you have spoken of readiness for discernment with a diocese and even temporary profession as a solitary hermit you have said it is necessary for a person to be a hermit in some essential sense. Could you say more about what you mean by this phrase? I think maybe I know what you are talking about but I also find the phrase difficult to define. Thanks!]]

Introduction:

That's such a great and important question! For me personally, articulating the definition of this phrase or the description of what I mean by it has been a bit difficult. It is a positive phrase but in some ways I found my own senses of what I meant by this come to real clarity by paying attention to examples of inauthentic eremitical life, individuals who call themselves hermits, for instance, but who, while nominally Catholic, are isolated and/or subscribe to a spirituality which is essentially unhealthy while embracing a theology which has nothing really to do with the God of Jesus Christ.  To paraphrase Jesus, not everyone who says "Lord, Lord" actually  has come to know the sovereignty of the Lord intimately. In other words it was by looking at what canonical hermits were not and could or should never be that gave me a way of articulating what I meant by "being a hermit in some essential sense." Since God is the one who makes a person a hermit, it should not surprise you to hear I will be describing the "essential hermit" first of all in terms of God's activity. 

Related to this then is the fact that the hermit's life is a gift to both Church and world at large. Moreover, it is a gift of a particular kind. Specifically it proclaims the Gospel of God in word and deed but does so in the silence of solitude. When speaking of being a hermit in some essential way it will be important to describe the qualities of mission and charism that are developing (or have developed) in the person's life. These are about more than having a purpose in life and reflect the simple fact that the eremitical vocation belongs to the Church. Additionally they are a reflection of the fact that the hermit precisely as hermit reflects the good news of salvation in Christ which comes to her in eremitical solitude. If it primarily came to her in another way (in community or family life for instance) it would not reflect the redemptive character of Christ in eremitical solitude and therefore her life could not witness to or reveal this to others in and through eremitical life. Such witness is the very essence of the eremitical life.

The Experience at the Heart of Authentic Eremitism:

Whenever I have written about becoming a hermit in some essential sense I have contrasted it with being a lone individual, even a lone pious person who prays each day. The point of that contrast was to indicate that each of us are called to be covenantal partners of God, dialogical realities who, to the extent we are truly human, are never really alone. The contrast was first of all meant to point to the fact that eremitical life involved something more, namely, a desert spirituality. It was also meant to indicate that something must occur in solitude which transforms the individual from simply being a lone individual. That transformation involves healing and sanctification. It changes the person from someone who may be individualistic to someone who belongs to and depends radically on God and the church which mediates God in word and sacrament. Such a person lives her life in the heart of the Church in very conscious and deliberate ways. Her solitude is a communal reality in this sense even though she is a solitary hermit. Moreover, the shift I am thinking of that occurs in the silence of solitude transforms the person into a compassionate person whose entire life is in tune with the pain and anguish of a world yearning for God and the fulfillment God brings to all creation; moreover it does so because paradoxically, it is in the silence of solitude that one comes to hear the cry of all in union with God. 

If the individual is dealing with chronic illness, for instance, then they are apt to have been marginalized by their illness. What tends to occur to such a person in the silence of solitude if they are called to this as a life vocation is the shift to a life that marginalizes by choice and simultaneously relates more profoundly or centrally. Because it is in this liminal space that one meets God and comes to union with God, a couple of things happen: 1) one comes to know one has infinite value because one is infinitely loved by God, not in terms of one's productivity, one's academic or other success, one's material wealth, and so forth, 2) one comes to understand that all people are loved and valued in the same way which allows one to see themselves as "the same" as others rather than as different and potentially inferior (or, narcissistically, superior), 3) thus one comes to know oneself as profoundly related to these others in God rather than as disconnected or unrelated and as a result, 4) chronic illness ceases to have the power it once had to isolate and alienate or to define one's entire identity in terms of separation, pain, suffering, and incapacity, and 5) one is freed to be the person God calls one to be in spite of chronic illness. The capacity to truly love others, to be compassionate, and to love oneself in God are central pieces of this.

The Critical Question in Discernment of Eremitical Vocations:

 What is critical for the question at hand is that the person finds her/himself in a  transformative relationship with God in solitude and thus, eremitical solitude becomes the context for a truly redemptive experience and a genuinely holy life. When I speak of someone being a hermit in some essential sense I am pointing to being a person who has experienced the salvific gift the hermit's life is meant to be for hermits and for those they witness to. It may be that they have begun a transformation which reshapes them from the heart of their being, a kind of transfiguration which heals and summons into being an authentic humanity which is convincing in its faith, hope, love, and essential joy. Only God can work in the person in this way and if God does so in eremitical solitude --- which means more than a transitional solitude, but an extended solitude of desert spirituality --- then one may well have thus become a hermit in an essential sense and may be on the way to becoming a hermit in the proper sense of the term as well.

If God saves in solitude (or in abject weakness and emptiness!), if authentic humanity implies being a covenant partner of God capable of mediating that same redemption to others in Christ, then a canonical hermit (or a person being seriously considered for admission to canonical standing and consecration MUST show signs of these as well as of having come to know them to a significant degree in eremitical solitude.  It is the redemptive capacity of solitude (meaning God in solitude) experienced by the hermit or candidate as  "the silence of solitude"  which is the real criterion of a vocation to eremitical solitude. (See other posts on this term but also Eremitism, the Epitome of Selfishness?) It is the redemptive capacity of God in the silence of solitude that the hermit must reflect and witness to if her eremitical life is to be credible.

Those Putative "Hermits" not Called to Eremitical Solitude:

For some who seek to live as hermits but are unsuccessful, eremitical solitude is not redemptive. As I have written before the destructive power of solitude overtakes and overwhelms the entire process of growth and sanctification which the authentic hermit comes to know in the silence of solitude. What is most striking to me as I have considered this question of being a hermit in some essential sense is the way some persons' solitude and the label "hermit" are euphemisms for alienation, estrangement, and isolation. Of course there is nothing new in this and historically stereotypes and counterfeits have often hijacked the title "hermit".  The spiritualities involved in such cases are sometimes nothing more than validations of the brokenness of sin or celebrations of self-centeredness and social failure; the God believed in is often a tyrant or a cruel judge who is delighted by our suffering -- which he is supposed to cause directly -- and who defines justice in terms of an arbitrary "reparation for the offences" done to him even by others, a strange kind of quid pro quo which might have given even St Anselm qualms. 

These "hermits" themselves seem unhappy, often bitter, depressed and sometimes despairing. They live in physical solitude but their relationship with God is apparently neither life giving nor redemptive -- whether of the so-called hermit or those they touch. Neither are their lives ecclesial in any evident sense and some are as estranged from the Church as they are from their local communities and (often) families. Because there is no clear sense that solitude is a redemptive reality for these persons, neither is there any sense that God is really calling them to eremitical life and the wholeness represented by union with God and characterized by the silence of solitude. Sometimes solitude itself seems entirely destructive, silence is a torturous muteness or fruitlessness; in such cases there is no question the person is not called to eremitical solitude. 

Others who are not so extreme as these "hermits" never actually embrace the silence of solitude or put God at the center of their lives in the way desert spirituality requires and witnesses to. They may even be admitted to profession and consecration but then live a relatively isolated and mediocre life filled with distractions, failed commitments (vows, Rule), and rejected grace. Some instead replace solitude with active ministry so that they really simply cannot witness to the transformative capacity of the God who comes in silence and solitude. Their lives thus do not show evidence of the incredibly creative and dynamic love of God who redeems in this way but it is harder to recognize these counterfeits. In such cases the silence of solitude is not only not the context of their lives but it is neither their goal nor the charism they bring to church and world. Whatever the picture, they have never been hermits in the essential sense.

Even so, all of these lives do help us to see what is necessary for the discernment of authentic eremitical vocations and too what it means to say that someone is a hermit in some essential sense. Especially they underscore the critical importance that one experiences God's redemptive intimacy in the silence of solitude and that one's life is made profoundly meaningful, compassionate, and hope-filled in this way.

A Contemplative Moment: Being Led into the Desert

 With joy and by the Spirit led the Church of Christ seeks desert paths,

all else forgotten, God alone to worship and to follow there. Amen

There silence shall set free the will,

the heart to one desire restore.

There each restraint shall purify

and strengthen those who seek the Lord.

There bread from heaven shall sustain

and water from the rock be struck

There shall his people hear his word,

 the living God encounter there.

All praise to God who calls his church

to make exodus from sin,

that tested, fasting, and prepared,

she may go up to keep the feast. Amen.

from the Camaldolese OSB office book

Lauds Lenten Hymn for Mondays and Thursdays